Re:Schizophrenia not a single disease but multiple genetical...
by bayesianhorse on Monday September 15, 2014 @04:01PM
(#8321120)
Yes, exactly this. DSM criteria do predict effective treatment, negative consequences for the patients (both with and without treatment), and help plan for the costs of these conditions. These factors are clinically relevant.
Neuroscience tries to get a firmer grip on how the brain works, and what goes wrong when it doesn't. This research hardly touches the clinical practice as of yet, but ultimately diagnostics and treatment might improve largely.
The model is clinically useful, but the assumption (which the DSM does not itself advertise or support, which is made implicitly when its categories are used as the basis for research) that the diagnostic categories in the DSM represent commonality in origin is an impediment to research.
While many people have overstated the NIMH move away from DSM categories as a basis for research funding as something like an indictment of the DSM in its intended role or, even more hyperbolicly, a rejection of psychiatry as a field, it is an important move that recognize that the DSM categories' utility in their intended purpose does not imply that they represent real commonality.