PSYS 170 Lecture 5: Classification and Diagnosis

• School: University of Vermont
• Department: Psychological Science
• Course: PSYS 170
• Professor: Kelly Joanna Rohan

Document Summary

Informs treatment: facilitates communication, helps predict behavior, advances research, societal demands (people want a diagnosis) Terms to know: symptom observable behavior, syndrome a cluster of co-occuring symptoms, disorder a syndrome + no more pervasive conditions, disease a disorder + a known underlying cause. In psychology, there are no diseases because psychologists don"t know exact causes. Diagnostic symptoms: diagnosis classifying disorders by their symptoms and signs, primary symptoms. International statistical classification of diseases, injuries, and causes of death (icd: diagnostic statistical manual (dsm) Dsm 5: atheoretical, criteria sets, essential and associated features, functional significance, exclusions, categorical, groups similar disorders together, no longer multi-axial, comorbidity is common, comorbidity having at least two diseases at the same time. Criticisms of classifications: harmful nature of labels, does not capture one"s uniqueness, comorbidity is common, but is it two diseases or really a single underlying problem, heterogeneity within categories.