Diagnostic method in psychiatry: changing times

Abstract

The disquiet about the current approach to psychiatric diagnoses exists since long. However the murmurs have become really loud after the publication of DSM-5 in 2013. While some are critical about the DSM-5 for various reasons (Gornall, 2013); there are others who suggest moving away completely from the disease model in psychiatry (Division of Clinical Psychology, 2013). In this context, the desire to develop a more biologically informed classification (Kupfer, 2014) and to have objective measures for psychiatric diagnoses like other branches of medicine (Insel, 2014;Cuthbert, 2014) is understandably a genuine need of the hour. It is good to see that there are initiatives and efforts in place for a different perspective in classifying psychopathologies on dimensions of observable behaviour and neurobiological measures, and improving diagnostic precision of mental disorders (Insel et al., 2010). During these changing times it is pertinent to reflect on the some of the issues with clinical relevance...