Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR)

by American Psychiatric Association

Paperback, 2000

Status

Available

Call number

616.89075

Collection

Publication

American Psychiatric Association (2000), Edition: 4th, 943 pages

Description

This text revision incorporates information culled from a comprehensive literature review of research about mental disorders published since DSM-IV was completed in 1994. Stay current with important updates to DSM-IV-TR. Benefit from new research into Schizophrenia, Asperger's Disorder, and other conditions. Utilize additional information about the epidemiology and other facets of DSM conditions. Updated information is included about the associated features, culture, age, and gender features, prevalence, course, and familial pattern of mental disorders. The DSM-IV-TR brings this essential diagnostic tool up-to-date, to promote effective diagnosis, treatment, and quality of care. Now you can get all the essential diagnostic information you rely on from the DSM-IV along with important updates not found in the 1994 edition.… (more)

Media reviews

Great dystopia isn’t so much fantasy as a kind of estrangement or dislocation from the present; the ability to stand outside time and see the situation in its full hideousness. The dystopian novel doesn’t necessarily have to be a novel. Maybe the greatest piece of dystopian literature ever
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written is Theodor Adorno’s Minima Moralia, a collection of observations and aphorisms penned by the philosopher while in exile in America during and after the Second World War. Even if, like I do, you disagree enthusiastically with his blanket condemnation of all “degenerated” popular culture, it’s hard not to be convinced that what we are living is “damaged life.” It’s not an argument so much as revelation. In Adorno’s bitterly lucid critique everything we take for granted is suddenly revealed in all its hideousness. The world Adorno lives in isn’t quite the same as ours; he’s coming at his subjects from a reflex angle – they’re a bunch of average Joes and Janes, he’s a misanthropic German cultural theorist with a preternaturally spherical head – but his insights are all the more relevant because of this. Something has gone terribly wrong in the world; we are living the wrong life, a life without any real fulfillment. The newly published DSM-5 is a classic dsytopian novel in this mold.

It’s also not exactly a conventional novel. Its full title is an unwieldy mouthful: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. The author (or authors) writes under the ungainly nom de plume of The American Psychiatric Association – although a list of enjoyably silly pseudonyms is provided inside (including Maritza Rubio-Stipec, Dan Blazer, and the superbly alliterative Susan Swedo). The thing itself is on the cumbersome side. Over two inches thick and with a thousand pages, it’s unlikely to find its way to many beaches. Not that this should deter anyone; within is a brilliantly realized satire, at turns luridly absurd, chillingly perceptive, and profoundly disturbing.

If the novel has an overbearing literary influence, it’s undoubtedly Jorge Luis Borges. The American Psychiatric Association takes his technique of lifting quotes from or writing faux-serious reviews for entirely imagined books and pushes it to the limit: Here, we have an entire book, something that purports to be a kind of encyclopedia of madness, a Library of Babel for the mind, containing everything that can possibly be wrong with a human being.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member absurdeist
Most, I'm sure, wouldn't consider reading the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed.) for pleasure, and I think that's a shame. Because even though the DSM-IV is used primarily in a clincal setting by highly skilled psychiatric professionals for the
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differential-diagnosing and treatment of mankind's complex plethora of psychopathologies both common and arcane and every run-of-the-mill disorder inbetween, I opine that the DSM-IV, even though it reads as dry as the Sahara, if not drier, nevertheless can be as wildly entertaining an alternative to playing charades or Pictionary at your next dinner or even office party. I recommend taking turns with your co-workers flipping through the DSM-IVs voluminous pages, so that you can self-diagnose one another's mental maladies.

"I think Susie over in HR has a delusional disorder, erotomanic type, coded 297.1, what do you think?"

Get the idea? Try it out with friends and family too, or on yourself.

However, before one would would ever want to engage in DSM-IV play for fun, one should first have a very clear handle on it's appropriate uses in a professional, and preferably psychiatric setting.

The DSM-IV is organized along its five axes. Each axis corresponds to specific subsets of clinical disorders and their diagnostic (and differential-diagnostic) criteria, etiology, behavorial profile of one afflicted with whatever disorder, treatment options, etc. Also, every specific disorder has its own specific code, just like there's specific police codes for every kind of crime or violation.

So, suppose you suffered from "Neuroleptic-Induced Tardive Dyskinesia," you'd be coded 333.82 on all the paperwork which would then hopefully help convince the insurance companies to pay your mental health practitioner so you could keep on receiving treatment and get better soon.

Axis I of the DSM-IV focuses on "Clinical Disorders and Other Conditions That May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention." Simply put, these are the psychopathological (love that word, "psychopathological") biggys: Major Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, Anxiety Disorder NOS (Not Otherwise Specified), etc.

Axis II is my favorite axis; it covers the Personality Disorders. If people aren't seeking out a therapist for their depression or anxiety, it will undoubtedly be, according to the APA (American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the DSM-IV) for their maladaptive personality types, which can wreak havoc on all levels of their involvement in the social spectrum, most notably, of course, in marriages and in the workplace and at school. There are only eleven Personality Disorders. Let's list each and every one of them, along with their corresponding codes.

1. Paranoid Personality Disorder (301.0). Self explanatory.

2. Schizoid Personality Disorderr (301.20). The loner.

3. Schizotypal Personality Disorder (301.22). People who act bizarre, do bizzare stuff, but don't hear voices and whose symptomatology presents with no clear-cut psychosis. Ergo, they don't make the all out schizophrenia cut.

4. Antisocial Personality Disorder (301.7). Every sociopath who's every lived; every serial killer also, has had this type of PD. It's the primary personality type of most criminals.

5. Borderline Personality Disorder (301.83). These are your stalkers and your "cutters". The teenage girl in White Oleander was on her way to becoming Borderline. Borderlines are miserable, and they're adept at sharing their misery, whether you like sharing it with them or not.

6. Histrionic Personality Disorder (301.50). Think Liza Minelli, Liberace, or any of The Real Housewives of Orange County.

7. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (301.81). I'd argue a lot of actors have this PD. Some doctors or some brain surgeons. It's the God-complex PD of PDs, for those who deem themselves all-powerful, able to control any outcome; they are the center of theirs (and they think, our) universes.

8. Avoidant Personality Disorder (301.82). Closely related to social phobia. Anxiety driven PD. Differentiated from Schizoid PD by concern. Avoidants care about and want to connect with other people, but are shy and inhibited from doing so, while Schizoids, frankly, couldn't give a shit whether they connect with people or not.

9. Dependent Personality Disorder (301.6). If you're 37 and have never left your parent's nest, you probably have Dependent PD. Or the classic spousal abuse scenario in which the person abused refuses to leave her abuser even though she knows down deep she should.

10. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (301.4). All too common. Hard to overcome, as they all are. Think Woody Allen.

11. Personality Disorder NOS (301.9).

Axis III covers General Medical Conditions. Perhaps you've got a physical ailment - migraines, say - which negatively affects your mood. Or you suffer from diabetes which can also affect your mood. Any medical conditions that cause psychological problems or contribute to them would be specified on this axis.

Axis IV pertains to Psychosocial and Environmental Problems. Perhaps the most subjective axis for the diagnostician to determine, since they must trust what the patient is telling them; that is, how the patient perceives themselves getting along in the world: in their marriage, relationships, job, education, etc. Are there any outside factors like a flood, say, or a fire resulting in the loss of their home, negatively contributing to their psychological profile?

Axis V: Global Assessment of Functioning. This is where a good clinician can wrap up all the diagnostic criteria and observations and tie a pretty (or not so pretty) bow on the patients overrall psychology, good or bad. There's a GAF scale the clinician uses, as well, to track a patient's progress and provide a numeric figure for a pretty nebulous construct: how well is the patient operating in all the psychologically and behaviorally pertinent areas of their life under inspection?

So that's the DSM-IV (soon to be the DSM-V) in a nutshell.
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Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1952 (DSM-I ∙ the first edition)
2000 (DSM-IV-TR)
2013 (DSM-5)

Physical description

943 p.; 6.25 inches

ISBN

0890420254 / 9780890420256

UPC

000890420254
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