• Question: Which system of categorizing disorders do you prefer to use? The ICD or the DSM?

    Asked by anon-216130 to Robert, Olly, Nicola, Jasmin, Dennis, Caroline on 12 Jun 2019. This question was also asked by anon-216133.
    • Photo: Dennis Relojo-Howell

      Dennis Relojo-Howell answered on 12 Jun 2019:

      DSM – It’s more widely used.

    • Photo: Oliver Clabburn

      Oliver Clabburn answered on 12 Jun 2019:

      I don’t have much experience with either, unfortunately! However, if I’m needing to refer to one for some reason in something I’m writing, I will tend to use DSM.

    • Photo: Jasmin Moon

      Jasmin Moon answered on 12 Jun 2019:

      I don’t have to categorise or diagnose mental health problems in my job but if I wanted to find out more information about a disorder I would probably use the DSM-5.

    • Photo: Robert Dempsey

      Robert Dempsey answered on 12 Jun 2019:

      I’ve been trained to a diagnostic interview based on the DSM… In truth, I think both have issues and I’m not convinced that they’re that brilliant in terms of understanding mental health experiences. Both the DSM and ICD have issues in terms of their use of language like ‘disorder’ and how they view mental health experiences as often being ‘abnormal’. In terms of our research, we tend to refer to the DSM more than the ICD – but neither is perfect and I think there are issues with some of the assumptions of these manuals in terms of how they define what mental health-related issues are.

    • Photo: Nicola Johnstone

      Nicola Johnstone answered on 13 Jun 2019:

      For research purposes, DSM is more generally used. I don’t have to give diagnoses, so have no preference.

    • Photo: Caroline Brett

      Caroline Brett answered on 13 Jun 2019:

      The ICD is more useful for physical health conditions while the DSM is (I would argue) more useful for mental health conditions. Both have their issues, and are constantly updated depending on current thinking in the fields

Comments