Description
Book SynopsisThis book provides a critical evaluation of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Starting from a historical overview of the evolution in psychiatric diagnosis, Vanheule asserts that the diagnostic reliability of the DSM-5 is overrated: important factors that undermine its diagnostic reliability have never been sufficiently addressed and the common idea that the handbook is reliable rests on a biased interpretation of statistical data. The book argues that the DSM-5 builds on a narrow biomedical approach to mental disorders that neglects context, and proposes its replacement with a contextualizing model of mental health symptoms. Drawing from phenomenological psychiatry and Lacanian psychoanalysis, the author concludes that a reflexive account of psychopathology is urgently needed.
Trade Review“Vanheule’s book is of special importance for people working in the helping professions. In particular, it offers clinicians, educators and students in training – regardless of framework – ways of formulating the pressing presence of the medical model. … For those who are in any kind of psychotherapy-training programme, this book can offer a complex picture of current the idealisations at work around the clinical imagination in conversation with their historical, clinical and social aspects.” (Aziz Guzel, Psychodynamic Practice, March, 2017)
“Stijn Vanheule’s book is very important and should be read by anyone who works with people with mental disorders such as psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, social workers and care workers. It should also be read by anyone who is interested in studying the field of mental disorders such as researchers, academics and scholars.” (Rik Loose, Lacunae, Vol. 2 (1), 2014)
Table of Contents1. Dynamics of Decision Making in the DSM: the Issue of Reliability 2. Context and Diagnosis in the DSM: the Issue of Validity
