Sunday 4 January 2009

News: Psychiatrists Revise the Book of Human Troubles - New York Times

The American Psychiatric Association are working on the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). This article in the New York Times (17 December 2008) highlights the challenge of defining and classifying mental illnesses such as obsessive compulsive disorder, binge eating, Asperger's syndrome, high-functioning autism and bipolar disorder amongst others.

Contributors to the DSM-V have been asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Amendments to the book are often hotly debated and contentious. The previous edition sold more than 830,000 copies.

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