Clinical significance, disability, and biomarkers: Shifts in thinking between DSM-IV and DSM-5
Proposals have been made in connection with ICD and DSM revisions to separate the concepts of mental disorder and of impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. The proposals are consistent with viewing disability as a social concept rather than a medical one. It is argued here on the basis of two main premises that mental disorder specifically cannot be conceptualized independently of social impairments. The first premise is that in general medicine the definition of disease essentially turns on impairments of normal function of an organ or system leading to poor outcomes. The second, compound premise is that one normal function of the central nervous system is the regulation of behaviour in the external world, and that this function is approximately the domain of the mental. The conclusion is drawn that mental disorder conceptually involves downturn in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.