Social constructionist contributions to critiques of psychiatric diagnosis and classification

Psychiatric diagnosis tests the hypothesis that particular signs and symptoms, when regularly found together, belong to a particular class. The class concerned, in turn, is usually part of a taxonomic system, and which system one chooses will depend on the aim and function of diagnosis (treatment, research, administration, etc.). Diagnosis and classification involve a loss of information, the magnitude of which is determined by both the use to which the diagnosis has been put and the assumptions and theoretical orientation of the clinicians involved in the exercise.

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Classification

Shorter Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry ◽

10.1093/med/9780199605613.003.0002 ◽

2012 ◽

pp. 21-34

Author(s):

Philip Cowen ◽

Paul Harrison ◽

Tom Burns

Keyword(s):

Clinical Research ◽

Psychiatric Diagnosis ◽

Epidemiological Studies ◽

Everyday Practice ◽

Clinical Process ◽

Diagnosis And Classification

Chapter 2 discusses the principles of psychiatric diagnosis and classification, since this provides the framework within which this clinical process happens. The term nosology is sometimes used to refer to classification and its study. It also covers why classification is needed in psychiatry, including enabling clinicians to communicate with one another about the diagnoses given to their patients, understanding the implications of these diagnoses in terms of their symptoms, prognosis, and treatment, and sometimes their aetiology, relating the findings of clinical research to patients seen in everyday practice, facilitating epidemiological studies and the collection of reliable statistics, and ensuring that research can be conducted with comparable groups of subjects.

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Neurodiversity, Autism, and Psychiatric Disability

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190622879.013.29 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 499-521

Author(s):

Jerome C. Wakefield ◽

David Wasserman ◽

Jordan A. Conrad

Keyword(s):

Mental Disorder ◽

Autistic Disorder ◽

Psychiatric Diagnosis ◽

Normal Variation ◽

Philosophy Of Psychiatry ◽

Disability Theory ◽

Harmful Dysfunction ◽

Critical Issues ◽

Diagnosis And Classification ◽

Psychiatric Conditions

Neurodiversity advocates apply the same kind of critiques to psychiatric conditions such as autism that disability theory has long applied to somatic conditions. Yet these critiques have received little attention from philosophy of psychiatry. Although the arguments of neurodiversity advocates often are undeveloped, they raise critical issues about psychiatric diagnosis and classification. This chapter uses Jerome Wakefield’s “harmful dysfunction analysis” of the concept of mental disorder to reconstruct and evaluate neurodiversity arguments that autism is a normal variation, not a mental disorder. We argue that because of the heterogeneity of “autism,” these arguments are more plausible for some subgroups than others. We find support for a moderate neurodiversity position that objects to psychiatric overreach without denying the reality of some forms of autistic disorder.

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Symptom networks and psychiatric categories

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x10000774 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 33 (2-3) ◽

pp. 158-159 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Nick Haslam

Keyword(s):

Psychiatric Disorders ◽

Psychiatric Diagnosis ◽

Network Models ◽

Network Approach ◽

Diagnosis And Classification

AbstractThe network approach to psychiatric phenomena has the potential to clarify and enhance psychiatric diagnosis and classification. However, its generally well-justified anti-essentialism views psychiatric disorders as invariably fuzzy and arbitrary, and overlooks the likelihood that the domain includes some latent categories. Network models misrepresent these categories, and fail to recognize that some comorbidity may represent valid co-occurrence of discrete conditions.

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