Critique of the DSM for a graduate social work class on Mental, Emotional, and Behavior Disorders

1. CRITICISMS
OF THE DSM
Jacqueline Corcoran, Ph.D.
Virginia Commonwealth University
School of Social Work
http://www.jacquelinecorcoran.com/

2. Social construction
notion of mental illness is accepted as “factual” or
“objective” by many of its members, when in fact
the belief system is constructed by influential members
of that society) and are reflective of the values of the
times in which they emerge.
psychiatric diagnoses are often based on cultural
notions of normality and abnormality, and mental
health and illness

3. Other criticisms
 Lacks strength focus
 Promotes an arbitrarily medical model and
overstates the case for biological causation
 Doesn’t address interactional problems and the
roles played by systems
 life transitions, relationship difficulties, and
environmental unresponsiveness
 Adjustment disorders, V-codes

4. More criticisms
 Many boundary cases
 lack of specificity has been dealt with in part by the
addition over time of new subtypes of disorders, and also
by introducing the “severity” qualifiers
 DSM is a money-making enterprise
 expanded classification of disorders in the DSM has
furthered the purposes of pharmaceutical companies
 Co-morbidity is a substantial problem
 Distinctions between clinical disorders and personality
disorders are problematic
 reliability of diagnosis is not high