J. Sayuri American Mink Watercolor Brain Art Print
Author: Erin Lee Henshaw, Co-Founder
One of my favorite ways to celebrate hard work is to share what I learn. This semester at VCU, like all the others, has been full of personal and professional challenges. I took a long-awaited class on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5.) I have been fascinated by this tool since I started therapy in middle school, and reading the history of how it has been changed and updated is truly fascinating. The DSM has played into how we view humans, psychiatry, mental health, diagnosis and the medicalization/pathologization of humanity. Unsurprisingly, I found many links with my Greek heritage (and the Egyptians and Arabs played a huge part in diagnosis as well!) Anyway, I digress.
Part of why I like the Virginia Commonwealth University MSW program is that it incorporates powerful novels and storytelling. This semester to challenge the DSM-5, we read Allen Frances' "Saving Normal." I highly recommend taking a look at his argument that the enhancement of diagnostic categories combined with the reduction of symptomology requirements for diagnosis from DSM-4 to DSM-5 effectively reduce our definition of "normal." For example, caffeine dependency and pre-menstrual disorder (PMS) have been added to the DSM-5. (Personally, given how our system operates, I see this as advantageous in the short-term.)
For those of you following along a challenging situation with my TA, I had to get a 100% on this paper to save my grade in this class, so I put in a lot of effort. Fortunately, I'm pretty fired up about the subject area. I want to share the paper as a way to celebrate my hard work and also share some perspectives on the DSM-5. What do you think? Given the way insurance is set up in America, is is good to increase diagnosis, or does this run the risk of making everyone "abnormal?"
Inspired by my friend, Erin Campbell, to post unpublished grad school work for purposes of knowledge transfer and cele-freaking-bration...here is my final paper: "DSM and the Concept of Disorder: Saving Normal"
https://lnkd.in/eGjfBQjP
#mentalhealth #socialwork #gradschool #perspective #dsm