How do doctors decide what disorder a person has? Organising into groups based on similar features or characteristics
Happens in many other areas eg biology
Basic tendency of human beings to want to classify Controversial – everyone is different
Can classification be useful and meaningful?
Sort shoes into two categories
Is this enough?
Sort into as many categories as you need
Make a clear list of the criteria needed for each category.
Other group must sort their shoes with your criteria What probelms did you encounter?
What can you learn about the difficulties of classification with this task?
Emil Kraeplin 1883
Believed psychiatric disorders mainly caused by genetic and biological factors – medical model
Collected thousands of case studies of people in mental hospitals
Certain psychological problems appeared to have a number of features in common.
Clusters of symptoms represent distinct illness
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/timeline/index.html
Medical model
◦ Physical cause
◦ Treatment
◦ Diagnosis of symptoms
◦ Illness
◦ treatment
First developed in 1952
Aims to provide a comprehensive list of disorders and guidelines for how to assign people to particular disorders.
1968 – revised – big Freudian influence – distinguishing between neuroses and psychoses 1973 The Rosenhan study cast serious doubt about validity of DSM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ5l5Npfdsg
Axis 1 – major mental disorders
Axis 2 – personality disorders or disorders present since birth (can be singled out from others which might be more episodic)
Axis 3 – general medical conditions
Axis 4 – stressors and problems
Axis 5 global assessment of functioning 1100
Correct identification
Communication - provides a useful shorthand – but a label may lead to relief or to stigma
Should be able to make prediction about useful treatments
Research
Clear descriptions – understandable
Reliability and validity