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Dsm Pros And Cons

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Based on Kessler and colleagues (2005) findings that about half of Americans will meet criteria for a mental disorder during their lives, I do not think the DSM is broken, neither that mental disorders are as concerning as some have said. I take this position because in some measure I embrace Szasz’s position that in order for a disorder to exist it is necessary to have an observer that judges a particular set of behaviors as abnormal, considering that psychological disorders cannot be physically measured like it would be the case of a medical disease (e.g.: small pox). Additionally, the DSM is a statistical manual, and as its name implies it is based on statistics, however, statistics can show how prevalent is one behavior in a population; it cannot by itself say that a behavior is …show more content…

Nevertheless, it would be easy to believe that half of our population can fit in a mental disorder because the DSM has become broader making continuum of disorder, thus if somebody is not entirely bipolar, he/she might fall into the depressive category. Similarly, it happens with Autism, Aspeger’s, and Pervasive Developmental disorders that have been integrated into a single Autism Spectrum Disorder. Now, the impact of a diagnosis can be more profound for a parent since the cause and the cure of autism are unknown. For a child that is high functioning, has good academic standing and has some social abilities, it is more hopeful to call him Asperger than to call him autistic. There are many stories of Asperger or PDD children that through ABA therapy have been able to succeed at school and create a richer social life. However, not many of these stories are told about low functioning autistic, so this could produce more negative emotions on parents than what the way it was

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