Psychiatrist suggests that DSM-5 has some positives but a lot of negatives

The Intelligent Clinician's Guide to the DSM-5® explores all revisions to the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual, and shows clinicians how they can best apply the strong points and shortcomings of psychiatry's most contentious resource. Written by a celebrated professor of psychiatry, this reader-friendly book uses evidence-based critiques and new research to point out where DSM-5 is right, where it is wrong, and where the jury's still out. Along the way, The Intelligent Clinician's Guide to the DSM-5® sifts through the many public controversies and clinical debates surrounding the drafting of the manual and shows how they inform a modern understanding of psychiatric illness, diagnosis and treatment. This book is necessary reading for all mental health professionals as they grapple with the first major revision of the DSM to appear in over 30 years.

"The clinician who longs for a balanced, reliable, and illuminating assessment of the state of psychiatric diagnosis and what it all means for understanding our clients - and who yearns for a guide who understands all the technical details but has somehow miraculously retained his common sense - can do no better than to turn to Joel Paris's incisive, magisterial, tone-perfect, and clear-as-a-bell overview. . . . If I wanted to sit down with someone to talk over the background and meaning of psychiatric diagnosis as I will face it in the post-DSM-5 era, Joel Paris is the person I would talk to. This is the clinician's seatbelt for surviving the diagnostic turbulence that has been tossing us around over the past few years and, possibly, for years to come."

Provided by Oxford University Press