Assignment 3 Robert Spitzer DSM Diagnostic System PDF

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Assignment from Professor Matthew Giobbi's class....

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In at least 500 words, please introduce Robert Spitzer and present his role in the development of the DSM diagnostic system. Robert Spitzer is a well known name in the world of psychology, particularly due to his involvement in the creation of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Spitzer was a psychiatrist who helped develop more efficient screening and questioning methods in order to more accurately diagnose disorders such as bipolar disorder and major depression. These included the Mood Disorder Questionnaire and the Patient Health Questionnaire, which are also useful for determining how well the patient is responding to treatment. He was given position as chairman of the APA group that was creating the third edition of the DSM. He also frequently criticized the previous editions’ reliability as a diagnostic manual, which encouraged his attempts to include more diagnoses in newer editions of the DSM. The DSM evaluates patients on various dimensions in regards to mental disorders in order to accurately diagnose and treat them. The original DSM was published in 1952 and it actually classified homosexuality as a mental disorder, or what they called a sociopathic personality disturbance. This brings me to one major achievement of Spitzer in editing the DSM diagnoses. Spitzer spoke out on his belief that homosexuality should no longer be treated as a disorder or an illness. More than twenty years after the first DSM edition was published, Spitzer was able to influence the removal of homosexuality from the DSM-II in 1974. Although much of his work in removing the stigma of homosexuality was controversial, what he accomplished by removing it was positively revolutionary. If it wasn’t for him, the DSM may have continued to classify homosexuality as a mental disorder and thus continue to treat homosexuals with harsh therapies. As we learned about from David Rosenhan’s experiment, the approval for psychiatry and diagnoses of mental illnesses at this time was drastically decreasing. The creation of the new DSM-III, which was led by Spitzer, was intended to increase the validity and consistency of diagnosing individuals with mental health issues. It was also Spitzer’s goal to include new categories and dimensions of diagnosis in the third edition, which he hoped would prevent more misdiagnoses like the ones experienced in the Rosenhan experiment. This edition was considered a breakthrough, especially in other countries, as the manual began to be used internationally. Unfortunately, Spitzer himself confessed that it was actually detrimental to include more categories in the DSM-III because he stated that it led to the diagnosis and treatment of individuals who most likely did not have an kind of mental illness at all. Although his role in this edition was immensely beneficial to the world of psychology, he would have admitted that this new manual did not improve as much as he has hoped as far as validity and reliability. That is, this edition was not as efficient as it should have been in diagnosing those who legitimately fit into that category. After his work on the DSM-III, Spitzer spoke out and wrote about the lasting problem of accurately differentiating between what can be categorized as abnormal or what is considered normal. This is still a problem that psychology faces today, but his role in improving the DSM was an immense step forward as far as making diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses more efficient....