%0 Journal Article
%T Understanding the DSM
%A Rachel Cooper
%J History of Psychiatry
%@ 1740-2360
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/0957154X17741783
%X This paper aims to understand the DSM-5 through situating it within the context of the historical development of the DSM series. When one looks at the sets of diagnostic criteria, the DSM-5 is strikingly similar to the DSM-IV. I argue that at this level the DSM has become ¡®locked-in¡¯ and difficult to change. At the same time, at the structural, or conceptual, level there have been radical changes, for example in the definition of ¡®mental disorder¡¯, in the role of theory and of values, and in the abandonment of the multiaxial approach to diagnosis. The way that the DSM-5 was constructed means that the overall conceptual framework of the classification only barely constrains the sets of diagnostic criteria it contains
%K Conceptual framework
%K DSM-III
%K DSM-IV
%K DSM-5
%K lock-in
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0957154X17741783