Pros and Cons of Diagnostic Categories for Mental Disorders: DSM Practical and Ethical Issues

This essay discusses the pros and cons of using diagnostic categories for mental disorders, including practical and ethical issues associated with the DSM. It explores the advantages of standardization, research guidance, and therapeutic guidance, as well as the disadvantages of oversimplification, over-diagnoses, and labeling and stigmatization. The essay also discusses practical and ethical issues associated with the use of DSM as a tool for diagnostic categories for mental disorders, and explores non-categorical approaches such as the dimensional and integrative approaches.

ESSAY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Discussing the pros and cons for using diagnostic categories for mental disorders. Including
practical and ethical issues associated with its use..........................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

Discussing the pros and cons for using diagnostic categories for mental
disorders. Including practical and ethical issues associated with its use.
The diagnostic and Statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM) refers to the handbook
that has been utilized by the healthcare professionals for getting guidance in regard to the
diagnosis of mental disorders. DSM mainly contains the description and the major symptoms for
diagnosing mental disorders Shorter, (2022) Example categories of DSM includes, Anxiety
disorders, depressive disorders, eating disorders, personality disorders, bipolar and the related
disorders. Thus, DSM enables healthcare specialist to have effective knowledge in context of
adopting and performing practice that assures the treatment of mental disorders.
The major advantages of using diagnostic categories such as DSM are associated with the
Standardization, Research guidance and Therapeutic guidance. Despite the flaws of DSM, it
is helpful for numerous reasons. Apart from the billing and coding the standardization assures
numerous benefits to the client and the clinician. The standardization of the diagnosis helps in
ensuring that, patient is receiving the appropriate and quality treatment. Furthermore, it ensures
help to the therapist in context of developing the specific therapy or goals. Moreover, it increases
the effectiveness of treatment. In addition, it has been reviewed that DSM provides help in
guiding the research in the context of mental health. The checklist of diagnosis helps in ensuring
that the different groups of the analyst are studying about the same disorder. Along with this,
DSM Reduces the guesswork for the mental health professionals. DSM diagnostic provides the
complete map in term of providing therapy to the patient who are facing mental issues. Within
using the DSM criteria the therapist can easily develop the quick frame of the reference that
assures help during the client session. Thus, DSM guides the research and the treatment as well.
Also, it provides the standardization framework in order to perform the practices McCoy Jr,
Pellegrini, (2020)
In mental health diagnostic using DSM incentivize to bring standardization in the
practice. Diagnostic and statistical Manual is an assistive manner to categorize the mental health
related issues. It has been seen that the toughest branch of illness is mental realm and over the
time due to improper standardization the discrepancy issue was a hindering way to categorize it
appropriately DSM is very advanced and clinical with respect to categorization of mental health
diagnostic, it contains descriptions, criteria, symptoms etc. into consideration, further it provides

common ground to all so can ensure better categorization of mental disorders which makes the
further tasks simpler and also paves way for enhancement in treating such severe, lethal ailments
Higuchi, Nakayama and et.al. (2021)
Over the time mental health is becoming more severe and affecting global health
standards. With this regard various studies and researches are being carried out but due to
improper categorization it has been always a tough nut to crack and misled the researches, but
now it is changing and due to practise of DSM now common language is available which guides
researchers. It affects study design and some criteria for exclusion/inclusion. Often in such
research it has been seen that due to different languages and lack of common categorization
concept various researches give contradictory results but with the help of DSM it is now handy
to accomplish bigger in mental health diagnosis.
Use of DSM improves clinical communication and aids to drive therapeutic practise
while treating mental ailments. It eases the work of identification, classification and also
eradication of such complex obstacles which hinder the therapeutic practice. Each client's unique
issues and set of predicaments can be treated properly, reduction of time and extending the best
treatment is very much possible with the help of this conceptualization tool Earlier it was not
possible to treat such mental ailments equally with higher level of efficiency due to lack of
proper criteria and map but now it is possible, DSM is solidifying mental treatments
Kruisselbrink, and et.al. (2019)
Along with the advantages there are numerous disadvantages of using diagnostic
categories such as DSM and those are, Oversimplification, Over diagnoses and Labelling &
Stigmatization. It has been evaluated from various studies that, DSM contains the
oversimplification of the human behaviour. The major focus has not been made over the major
issues rather than this, another elements has been taken in consideration. Also, the another
disadvantage of the DSM is concerned with the Over-diagnoses. For example: Hyperactivity
disorder has been shifted in the diagnostic criteria under DSM-IV with the major upturn in
numerous of children on the Ritalin or the other medication. The other risks are associated with
the possibility of stigmatization. Specific diagnosis for specific disorder has not been determined
in specific way. Also, large number of the attached labels contains the mandatory information
that often ignored by the healthcare professionals. Thus, the information that needs to be put in

the main part has been putted into the labelling part. The disadvantages of DSM have perspective
that is aligned with the inappropriate information related to the mental diagnostic.
This is the most debatable issue that all people are having their uniqueness when it comes
to their behaviour so while treating their mental health using such standardization is not much
favourable. It brings oversimplification, which is taken as serious peril by some experts, they
believe that giving labels and numbers to such complex issue would not only disrupt sense of
uniqueness of individual mental health problem but on the other hands it may raise risks such as
losing track of human individuality factors Frounfelker, Gilman, (2018) With the use of modern
forms of DSM it is also being experienced that a person may found with two different types of
disorders consisting personality disorder.
The another jeopardy has been possibility of misdiagnoses or over-diagnoses. It is
possible due to standardization a range of people may be diagnosed due to unaligned mental
states which is a general phenomenon. Some mental issues like hyper-attentive mind is a very
common thing, specifically in children so the conviction can not be ignored that misdiagnoses or
over-diagnoses may take place. ADHD is one of such instance which stands for attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder, it is being seen that in such cases generally the patent gets suffered by
misdiagnoses or over-diagnoses. With the progress of time some conditions are also being
removed form DSM such as sex addiction, orthorexia, internet addiction etc. McCabe, Hughes,
(2022) so if these are not taken into focus then may affect ability to diagnose, If any such types
of mental issue is not considered then there is vast possibility to misdiagnoses of a patient in
absence of proper way.
Now the society is getting reformed and mental health problems are not being seen as
they have been earlier in the past. Yet such DSM paves way to frequently use some labelling to
the clients by the therapists. Which may darken or stigmatize the image of a person. DSM
provides a range of such labelling or common terms which are used to characterize certain
mental issue so this is one of the biggest disadvantage. There are a wide groups of therapists who
keep avoiding such labelling so can eradicate any such type of possibility but such instance may
take place any time and can cause serious damages to the patient. The range of the stigma is
horrific since it comes in three forms such as self stigma, public stigma and label avoidance,
which affects the socio-cognitive process of stability and groupness Nordahl-Hansen, Tøndevold
& Fletcher-Watson, (2018)

There are some practical and ethical issues are also associated with the use of DSM as a too for
diagnostic categories for mental disorders.
One of the biggest practical issue is about its structure. For instance currently in DSM5
there are around 70 mental issues are enlisted and some issues such as internet and sex addictions
are kept out so here it is loosing its practical usefulness and also raises sense of confusion too.
Practically it is also being seen that some mental perils like hyper-attentiveness are being taken
wrongly which is leading to misdiagnoses and over-diagnoses. Practical use of such tools is only
possible if it offers sense of superiority and correctness which is somehow missing Nelson,
(2019)
DSM has been alleged for ethical concerns too, as labelling and characterization are
affecting the morale of a patent. Which is taken as stigmatization of a person. There are some
researchers which has disclosed these points, person with mental illness is still not much normal
for the society so it by using DSM it is being labelled then may lose its social interactions and
get stigmatized. Keeping ethical concerns in mind while practising such diagnosis categorizing
tool is much-needed. Professional judgements are still much relevant in the realm of mental
health diagnosis, but if DSM is there then medical professionals would deny or hesitate to extend
their professional judgements which is against professional ethos and disrupt ethical norms too.
There are some institution who are introducing their own tools to categorize mental disease for
instance five association has kicked off Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, known as PDM in
the year 2006. This is against professional ethos to disrupt the reliability of certain practise.
There are some non categorical approaches too, which strongly uphold the notion of not
using such categorization to diagnose such mental illness Mental issues such as sanity, insanity
and other forms of mental disorders. Due to some disadvantageous outcomes of using categorical
approach, the alternatives becomes more relevant. As it has been seen that the modern
categorical approaches are having some issues while treating a patent suffering form any form of
mental disorder such as sanity, hyper-attentiveness, mental and mood disorders etc., with this
regard the application and ethical based jeopardies can not be eliminated Chen, Chen, (2020)

Dimensional approach which is exactly contrasting of the categorical approach. This
considers a range of significant elements in attempt t quantify it on the scale. Some continuous
dimensions and some other personality features are being taken into consideration at the same
time This approach is totally against using some strong thresholds in order to ascertain mental
disorders. Creating thresholds between disorder and normality is the foolish idea which affects
the ability to treat the case so it is better to consider different dimensions and treat the case. In
this approach the for treatment of mental or behavioural disorders qualitative conceptualization is
taken in to focus rather than quantitative method. Further, it avoids dichotomous way and prefer
spectrum way to diagnose the ailment.
One of the best non categorical approach is Integrative approach. This approach
suggests that such mental disorders and issues must be seen as integrative peril. Here notions like
psychological, social, experiential, biological aspects are taken together to decipher the mental
disorder. More information about mental illness enables to treat the patent better by using both
cognitive science and neuroscience. With some major psychological issues it is complicated due
to subject of classification of human behaviour. It not only raises doubt on reliability, validity of
the classification but also affects the final repercussions. Biomedical model which presents
different dimensions of the mental issues, it believes that such mental disorders are having need
of pharmacological treatment. This approach emphasizes to the conviction that brain disorders
are caused by chemical disorders so rather than their categorization, disease specific drugs must
be given to the patient.
Prototypical approach of diagnosis which pays attention to the conviction that a
diagnostician must compare overall clinical presentation of a patent to the diagnostic prototypes.
Here a particular scale can be used to measure the intended aspect. Some ailments such as
personality disorders, anxiety disorder, mood disorder, all these different forms of mental
disorders can be treated with the help of prototype approach. It is easy to use, topple artefactual
co-morbidity, and the most attractive feature that is ready to get translated into both dimensional
and categorical diagnosis. This is perceived to be one of the best way since it gravely ensure
natural classification of human behaviour which is behind mental disorders Bassi, Negri, (2021)
So by using these non categorical approaches such severe mental health problems can be
treated and the perils which are affecting validity, reliability, partiality factors of the mental
ailments' diagnosis can be eradicated.

REFERENCES
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