PMID: 8582307Dec 1, 1995Paper

Importance of DSM IV (APA) and ICD-10 (WHO) in diagnosis and treatment of mood disorders

L'Encéphale
M Bourgeois

Abstract

Since 1993, with ICD-10 (WHO), and 1994, with DSM IV (APA), practitioners have had at their disposal two (practically compatible) classifications of mental disorders containing operational criteria for diagnosis, and helpful in guiding clinical and therapeutic approach. Moreover, the use of one of these classifications (ICD-10) is compulsory in French state psychiatric institutions. We shall try to convince that these manuals are useful, and indeed unavoidable, henceforth, not only for researchers but also for practitioners, for the following reasons: "Any form of order is preferable to chaos" (Lévi Strauss); An implicit classification is always at work, even where the clinician feels he is working by intuition and treating each patient as a unique and individual case. It is not necessarily a bad thing to compare one's own stereotypes with currently held beliefs; All efforts to evaluate treatments, both psychotherapeutic and chemotherapeutic, are now based on these clinical definitions and models. Particularly as regards mood disorders, DSM III and DMS IV have managed to rid us of the uncertainties and contradictions surrounding etiopathogenesis (endogenous? psychogenic? reactive? defensive? adaptive? biological? etc.) which pr...Continue Reading

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