In the 1840’s the government wanted to collect data on mental illnesses in America. They included categories in the census such as “insanity, mania, melancholia, monomania, paresis, dementia, dipsomania, and epilepsy.” In 1917 the Committee on Statistics of the American Medico-Psychological Association, or the American Psychiatric Association as it is known today, published the Statistical Manual for the use of Institutions for the Insane. The manual contained twenty-two groups of mental illnesses and had ten editions between 1917 and 1942. By this time there were about three different classification systems in use for the United States; the Standard Classified Nomenclature of Disease, the Armed Forces Nomenclature, and the Veterans Administration
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The typical entry for a disorder consisted of a description one paragraph long, to be compared to the patient. It mirrored another system very closely called the Medical 203 system. Both had standard psychoanalytic categories of neurotic, psychotic, and character disorders. The DSM had six somatization disorders that were not included in the Medical 203. Neither had a section for childhood disorders. One controversy concerning the DSM is the fact that Combat Exhaustion disorder was absent from the manual. It was replaced with Gross Stress Reaction, which moved the focus away from the military association of the disorder. Combat Exhaustion should not be confused with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The manual also relied on the term “reaction”. This was mainly influenced by Adolf Meyer because he viewed psychopathology as a reaction to habit patterns in response to emotional states brought on by the circumstances of life (Houts, 2000). The second version wasn’t much of an improvement. It was published in 1968 and increased the disorder count to 182. This edition included a section for childhood and adolescence disorders. It also included a section for sexual deviations including Homosexuality, Fetishism, Pedophilia, Transvestism, and many …show more content…
The psychiatrist community was divided on the matter and a committee was held. From the committee four tenants were created: 1) Some experts believed homosexuality was pathological while other experts considered it to be a normal variant; 2) Many homosexuals are satisfied with their sexual orientation; 3) a significant portion of homosexuals want to change their orientation; 4) Modern treatment allows a significant amount of homosexuals to change their orientation (APA, 1973). Ultimately it was determined that homosexuality did not meet the requirements to be considered a mental disorder and it was removed from the seventh printing of DSM II. The term “was dropped from all adult disorders. Major changes came around in the DMS III when it was released in 1980. It included 265 disorders and is 494 pages long. It also changed how it classified the disorders. The concept of the DSM II was that the disorders were symptoms of an underlying conflict of the subconscious (First, 2010). Public perception about psychiatry was unfavorable and diagnosis were viewed as unclear and
The typical entry for a disorder consisted of a description one paragraph long, to be compared to the patient. It mirrored another system very closely called the Medical 203 system. Both had standard psychoanalytic categories of neurotic, psychotic, and character disorders. The DSM had six somatization disorders that were not included in the Medical 203. Neither had a section for childhood disorders. One controversy concerning the DSM is the fact that Combat Exhaustion disorder was absent from the manual. It was replaced with Gross Stress Reaction, which moved the focus away from the military association of the disorder. Combat Exhaustion should not be confused with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The manual also relied on the term “reaction”. This was mainly influenced by Adolf Meyer because he viewed psychopathology as a reaction to habit patterns in response to emotional states brought on by the circumstances of life (Houts, 2000). The second version wasn’t much of an improvement. It was published in 1968 and increased the disorder count to 182. This edition included a section for childhood and adolescence disorders. It also included a section for sexual deviations including Homosexuality, Fetishism, Pedophilia, Transvestism, and many …show more content…
The psychiatrist community was divided on the matter and a committee was held. From the committee four tenants were created: 1) Some experts believed homosexuality was pathological while other experts considered it to be a normal variant; 2) Many homosexuals are satisfied with their sexual orientation; 3) a significant portion of homosexuals want to change their orientation; 4) Modern treatment allows a significant amount of homosexuals to change their orientation (APA, 1973). Ultimately it was determined that homosexuality did not meet the requirements to be considered a mental disorder and it was removed from the seventh printing of DSM II. The term “was dropped from all adult disorders. Major changes came around in the DMS III when it was released in 1980. It included 265 disorders and is 494 pages long. It also changed how it classified the disorders. The concept of the DSM II was that the disorders were symptoms of an underlying conflict of the subconscious (First, 2010). Public perception about psychiatry was unfavorable and diagnosis were viewed as unclear and