Disadvantages Of The Dsm-5 Essay

Today, health clinicians diagnose patients with mental illness and other various conditions using the primary method of classification known as The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, Fifth Edition (DSM 5). Social workers provide more therapeutic services than any other group of professionals; nearly every field in the social work profession has a mental health component (Probst, 2012). For this reason, it is imperative the DSM-5 be known when practicing as a social worker regardless of the field.
Benefits
Some identified advantages of the DSM in social work is that it provides professionals with a way to communicate, organize thinking, make decisions and advocate for clients with insurance companies (Pomeroy et al., 2003). Two of the DSM's main critics have conceded that the "DSM represents a major way of organizing psychiatric knowledge, research efforts and treatment approaches" (Kirk & Kuchins, 1994, p. 71). The DSM 5 provides clinicians a universal
This is proven by the fact that “diagnoses can be voted in or out, based on little more than the opinions of the persons charged with revising or creating those diagnoses, or because of political activism, speaks directly to the ideological and constructivist nature of the diagnostic enterprise” (Robbins, 2014). An example would be the removal of homosexuality from the DSM in 1973, and since many diagnoses have been removed, added, or redefined. The DSM providing a common language for social workers can also provide an appropriate framework of a client to guide interventions using evidence-based practice (Probst, 2012). The addition of social and environmental context has improved the DSM’s reliability and integrates the person-in-environment approach which helps social workers view their client’s