What is the DSM-5? A guide to the manual
If you are a psychology student, a psychologist, counsellor or psychiatrist, or simply someone who wants to learn psychology from reliable science rather than pop psychology, you have probably heard of the DSM. In this article I explain what you need to know about the DSM, so that by the end you will have a clear understanding of it.
What is the DSM?
If you have read other articles on this site, you will know that psychology recognises a range of mental health conditions; we have looked at some of them, such as depression, in detail. These conditions need to be brought together, classified and defined in one consistent system, and that is why the DSM was created.
The DSM-5 is the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders", published by the American Psychiatric Association and used to diagnose mental disorders. It helps doctors and mental health professionals diagnose mental disorders and classify them correctly. The fifth edition was published in 2013 and replaced the fourth. In March 2022, a text revision called DSM-5-TR was published, and it is now the current edition.
The DSM-5 contains descriptions of many kinds of mental disorders, including addictions, attention disorders, personality disorders and other psychological problems. Each disorder is described by a set of criteria and descriptions used to diagnose and study it. The DSM-5 is regarded as a core reference for diagnosing mental disorders in psychiatry.
History of the DSM
The DSM has had several editions, from the first to today's. Here is a short history:
DSM-I (1952): the first edition, published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). It included a limited number of disorders and general descriptions.
DSM-II (1968): the second edition added more disorders and descriptions and was more comprehensive than the first.
DSM-III (1980): a major change. It introduced criteria-based diagnosis with detailed diagnostic descriptions, separated disorders more clearly, and helped clinicians make diagnoses.
DSM-III-R (1987): a revised edition of DSM-III with changes to descriptions and diagnostic criteria.
DSM-IV (1994): brought further changes to descriptions and criteria, with important updates that helped clinicians diagnose many conditions.
DSM-IV-TR (2000): a text revision of DSM-IV with updated criteria and descriptions.
DSM-5 (2013): the fifth edition, with major changes to how mental disorders are diagnosed and described, updated in line with new research.
DSM-5-TR (2022): the text revision of DSM-5 and the current edition. Among other changes, it added prolonged grief disorder and updated the descriptions of many disorders based on new research.
Each edition of the DSM reflects new developments in psychiatry and psychology, and these changes have helped mental health professionals diagnose and study mental disorders more accurately.
The DSM-5 is also available in Persian translation, but if your English is good I recommend reading the original, bought from the official publisher.
The main chapters of the DSM-5
When I first came across the DSM-5, I kept searching for exactly which disorders it covers, not realising that almost the whole book, apart from the introduction at the start and the references at the end, is about exactly that. Here are the main categories of mental disorders in the DSM-5.
Note that these are the main chapter headings of the DSM-5, so a few of them are not disorders in themselves, and each needs to be studied separately.
- Neurodevelopmental disorders
- Schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders
- Bipolar and related disorders
- Depressive disorders
- Anxiety disorders
- Obsessive-compulsive and related disorders
- Trauma- and stressor-related disorders
- Dissociative disorders
- Somatic symptom and related disorders
- Feeding and eating disorders
- Elimination disorders
- Sleep-wake disorders
- Sexual dysfunctions
- Gender dysphoria
- Disruptive, impulse-control and conduct disorders
- Substance-related and addictive disorders
- Neurocognitive disorders
- Personality disorders
- Paraphilic disorders
- Other mental disorders
- Medication-induced movement disorders and other adverse effects of medication
- Other conditions that may be a focus of clinical attention