Can different types of distress be classified?
How do doctors decide what disorder a person has? Organising into groups based on similar features or characteristics
 Happens in many other areas eg biology
 Basic tendency of human beings to want to classify  Controversial – everyone is different
 Can classification be useful and meaningful?
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Sort shoes into two categories
 Is this enough?
 Sort into as many categories as you need
 Make a clear list of the criteria needed for each category.
 Other group must sort their shoes with your criteria  What probelms did you encounter?
 What can you learn about the difficulties of classification with this task?
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Emil Kraeplin 1883
 Believed psychiatric disorders mainly caused by genetic and biological factors – medical model
 Collected thousands of case studies of people in mental hospitals
 Certain psychological problems appeared to have a number of features in common.
 Clusters of symptoms represent distinct illness 

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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/timeline/index.html

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Medical model
◦ Physical cause
◦ Treatment
◦ Diagnosis of symptoms
◦ Illness
◦ treatment

First developed in 1952
 Aims to provide a comprehensive list of disorders and guidelines for how to assign people to particular disorders.
 1968 – revised – big Freudian influence – distinguishing between neuroses and psychoses  1973 The Rosenhan study cast serious doubt about validity of DSM
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ5l5Npfdsg

Axis 1 – major mental disorders
 Axis 2 – personality disorders or disorders present since birth (can be singled out from others which might be more episodic)
 Axis 3 – general medical conditions
 Axis 4 – stressors and problems
 Axis 5 global assessment of functioning 1100
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Correct identification
 Communication - provides a useful shorthand – but a label may lead to relief or to stigma
 Should be able to make prediction about useful treatments
 Research
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Clear descriptions – understandable
Reliability and validity