Most everyone agrees that having pneumonia or a broken leg is always a bad thing, but not everyone agrees that sadness, grief, anxiety, or even hallucinations are always bad things. This fundamental disjunction in how disease and disorders are valued is the basis for the considerations in Descriptions and Prescriptions. In this book John Z. Sadler, M.D., brings together a distinguished group of contributors to examine how psychiatric diagnostic classifications are influenced by the values held by mental health professionals and the society in which they practice. The aim of the book, according to Sadler, is ''to involve psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers, and scholars in related fields in an intimate exchange about the role of values in shaping past and future classifications of mental disorders.'' Contributors: George J. Agich, Ph.D., Cleveland Clinic Foundation; Carol Berkenkotter, Ph.D., Michigan Technological University; Lee Anna Clark, Ph.D., University of Iowa; K.W.M. Fulford, D.Phil., F.R.C.Psych., University of Warwick, Coventry; Irving I. Gottesman, Ph.D., University of Virginia; Laura Lee Hall, Ph.D.; Cathy Leaker, Ph.D., Empire State College; Chris Mace, M.D., M.R.C.Psych., University of Warwick, Coventry; Laurie McQueen, M.S.S.W., American Psychiatric Association, Washington, D.C.; Christian Perring, Ph.D., Dowling College; James Phillips, M.D., Yale University School of Medicine; Harold Alan Pincus, M.D., University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Jennifer H. Radden, D.Phil., University of Massachusetts; Doris J. Ravotas, M.A., L.L.P., Michigan Technological University; Patricia A. Ross, Ph.D., University of Minnesota; Kenneth F. Schaffner, M.D., Ph.D., George Washington University; Michael Alan Schwartz, M.D., Case Western Reserve University; Daniel W. Shuman, J.D., Southern Methodist University; Allyson Skene, Ph.D., York University; Jerome C. Wakefield, D.S.W., Rutgers University; Thomas A. Widiger, Ph.D., University of Kentucky; Osborne P. Wiggins, Ph.D., University of Louisville.
Contents:
List of Contributors Acknowledgments
PART ONE: Introduction and Background 1 Introduction 2 The Limits of an Evidence-Based Classification of Mental Disorders 3 Values, Politics, and Science in the Construction of the DSMs
PART TWO: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations 4 Values and Objectivity in Psychiatric Nosology 5 Survival of the Fittest? Conceptual Selection in Psychiatric Nosology 6 Technical Reason in the DSM-IV: An Unacknowledged Value 7 Implications of a Pragmatic Theory of Disease for the DSMs 8 Rethinking Normativism in Psychiatric Classification
PART THREE: Diagnostic Categories and Values 9 Evaluation and Devaluation in Personality Assessment 10 Values and Validity of Diagnostic Criteria: Disvalued versus Disordered Conditions of Childhood and Adolescence 11 Implications of an Embrace: The DSMs, Happiness, and Capability 12 Why Criteria of Involuntary Action Are Value Laden
PART FOUR: Personal and Collective Interests 13 The Hegemony of the DSMs 14 What Patient and Families Look for in Psychiatric Diagnosis 15 Softened Science in the Courtroom: Forensic Implications of a Value-Laden Classification 16 Speaking Across the Border: A Patient Assessment of Located Languages, Values, and Credentials in Psychiatric Classification 17 Psychotherapists as Authors: Microlevel Analysis of Therapists' Written Reports
PART FIVE: Visions for the Future 18 Clinical and Etiological Psychiatric Diagnoses: Do Causes Count? 19 Defining Genetically Informed Phenotypes for the DSM-V 20 Values in Developing Psychiatric Classifications: A Proposal for the DSM-V 21 Report to the Chair of the DSM-VI Task Force from the Editors of Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology, ""Contentious and Noncontentious Evaluative Language in Psychiatric Diagnosis"" (Dateline 2010)
References Index
""In particular, I believe this volume has explicit value for all who serve on a DSM-V committee, as well as those with an interest in nosology or medical sociology, those with a critical role in psychiatric education, or those who simply have a philosophical bent (a non-DSM character trait). ""
