The APA is publishing the DSM-V in 2013. Many disorders, including PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder), addiction, compulsive buying disorder, and apathy disorder, will be added by the DSM-V Task Force into the DSM-V. The central TOK issue raised in the article is the language issue of defining abnormality or normality. The AoK involves human sciences because the DSM-V is based on human behavior.
The advantage of adding all the disorders is that it is a means for the systematic categorization of mental disorders. By categorizing mental disorders, every psychiatrist would be able to consult the same book to make diagnosis instead of relying on his or her opinions. In other words, the DSM put a name to symptoms of a mental disorder and provides structure for the diagnosing of mental disorders.
On the other hand, the disadvantage is that DSM doesn’t draw a clear line between a pathological disorder and an idiosyncratic behavior. It’s difficult to explicitly claim that one behavior is normal and the other isn’t. For example, some symptoms of PMDD are sadness and anxiety. They are arbitrary and may be experienced by everyone. Also, lot of times, the symptoms of mental disorders have certain timelines (i.e. “if you’re depressed for over two weeks....”), but who defined that (i.e. why two weeks instead of three)? Another disadvantage is that the disorders are stigmatizing; labeling people could lead to self-fulfilling prophecies and seclusion. Lastly, the validity of the DSM should be considered. Every publication of DSM is thicker than the preceding one, and the widening scope of disorders makes us question if the DSM is accurate and all of us crazy or sick, or if the DSM is written in favor of certain authorities, such as drug industries in the ‘60s.
Despite the questionable validity of such a classification system of mental illnesses, the benefits of DSM-V (or DSM in general) outweigh the disadvantages, because it provides a standardized way for people to understand their own behavior as well as one another’s. Although DSM may not be accurate in drawing the line between abnormality and normality, it is still better to be precise and not accurate than it is to be neither precise nor accurate.
Branching off, the language issue of defining abnormality and normality brings an interesting question: can life in general be defined by words? Language is a human tool used to label the world around us and to communicate with one another. However, it is an imprecise tool. Often times, the words we use are not an accurate depiction of what we are thinking. Just as a map is not a precise representation of the territory, language is an imprecise representation of our thoughts.
Similar to the DSM-V case concerning language barriers, Caster Semenya also had trouble with questions about her gender during the 2009 World Championships. It was questioned whether Caster Semenya had a physical condition that gave her an advantage over the other competitors. The question the issue raises is, how should gender be defined? Or, in the grander scheme of life, how should anything be defined, when so few things are clearly this or clearly that and everything else falls in between?
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