(Ebook) DSM A History of Psychiatry’s Bible by Horwitz, Allan V. ISBN 9781421440705, 1421440709

(Ebook) DSM A History of Psychiatry’s Bible by Horwitz, Allan V. ISBN 9781421440705, 1421440709

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association pervades our culture. Since publication of the manual’s third edition in 1980, its diagnoses define what mental disorders are considered legitimate, how patients conceive of their problems, who receives government benefits, and which conditions psychotropic drugs target and insurance companies will pay to treat. They also delineate the curriculum that is taught to psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, the diagnoses that researchers and epidemiologists explore, and the psychic problems that public policies attempt to remedy. Conversely, the DSM has attracted an enormous amount of criticism from, among others, feminists, gay activists, the anti-psychiatry movement, academics from various disciplines, and many psychiatrists. No other medical manual has been the object of so much attention and critique. This book traces the evolution of the DSM from its predecessors that arose in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, to the emergence of the first analytically oriented manuals in 1952 and 1968, and to the incarnation of the medical model that has marked each DSM since 1980.