Psy270 Appendix G
Axia College Material
Appendix G
The DSM-IV
The DSM-IV is an important tool for clinicians. It provides a standard for diagnoses to be standardized across psychology; however, the DSM-IV is not as precise for diagnosing personality disorders as some psychologists would like.
Give an example of each of the following problems identified in your readings and explain how these problems could negatively affect a diagnosis.
1. Some criteria used for reaching a diagnosis cannot be observed directly.
2. Personality disorders can be similar to each other.
3. People with different personalities can be given the same diagnosis
4. Do you think that personality disorders are true mental illnesses? Why or why not?
1. More information about the patient’s symptoms would have to be gathered by the clinician to ensure a misdiagnosis is not made. Information such as how the patient reacts during stressful events, the patient personality, when the symptoms appears, the environment that usually triggers the symptoms, and any other information that they patient may be reluctant to share. An example of this would be a person who is diagnosed with an anxiety disorder when they actually have asthma.
2. Since many of the same symptoms are apparent in different disorders it possible for a clinician to misdiagnosis between disorders especially is the clinician only relies on information gathered in their office. An example of this would be a person with OCD while giving details of their normal day this patient may be diagnosed with another kind of anxiety disorder.
3. since individuals must meet a certain number of criteria from DSM-IV to be diagnosis but one single feature is not needed to make a diagnosis. An example of this would be a person who displays features of OCD but only happen to be thorough.
4 I do believe that personality disorders are true mental illnesses because personality disorders are classified as being mental disorders in the
Appendix G
The DSM-IV
The DSM-IV is an important tool for clinicians. It provides a standard for diagnoses to be standardized across psychology; however, the DSM-IV is not as precise for diagnosing personality disorders as some psychologists would like.
Give an example of each of the following problems identified in your readings and explain how these problems could negatively affect a diagnosis.
1. Some criteria used for reaching a diagnosis cannot be observed directly.
2. Personality disorders can be similar to each other.
3. People with different personalities can be given the same diagnosis
4. Do you think that personality disorders are true mental illnesses? Why or why not?
1. More information about the patient’s symptoms would have to be gathered by the clinician to ensure a misdiagnosis is not made. Information such as how the patient reacts during stressful events, the patient personality, when the symptoms appears, the environment that usually triggers the symptoms, and any other information that they patient may be reluctant to share. An example of this would be a person who is diagnosed with an anxiety disorder when they actually have asthma.
2. Since many of the same symptoms are apparent in different disorders it possible for a clinician to misdiagnosis between disorders especially is the clinician only relies on information gathered in their office. An example of this would be a person with OCD while giving details of their normal day this patient may be diagnosed with another kind of anxiety disorder.
3. since individuals must meet a certain number of criteria from DSM-IV to be diagnosis but one single feature is not needed to make a diagnosis. An example of this would be a person who displays features of OCD but only happen to be thorough.
4 I do believe that personality disorders are true mental illnesses because personality disorders are classified as being mental disorders in the