16 - Introduction

Summary

Ranging from disdain to contempt, the dissatisfaction with DSM and ICD categories takes many forms. Some reject the value of official, shared classifications (Caplan, 1995; Markon, 2013). Others believe that the descriptive categories of the DSM have prevented the discovery of successful treatments and should be replaced with constructs based on etiology and pathogenesis (Hyman, 2011; Insel, 2013). Still others question the use of diagnostic categories derived from clinical tradition and prefer a more quantitative, dimensional approach to classification (Krueger et al., 2018; Livesley, 2012). In contrast, Parnas and Zandersen deride neither the classification of psychopathology, descriptive psychopathology per se, nor the use of categories/kinds, but instead critique the use of the DSM symptom based, operational approach to classification in the absence of an integrative theoretical framework.