DSM-III

DSM-III is the American Psychiatric Association’s 1980 manual for classifying mental disorders. It introduced explicit diagnostic criteria and a largely atheoretical approach to diagnosis.

Robert Spitzer: An American psychiatrist who led the development of DSM-III and shaped modern psychiatric classification. He chaired the task force that produced DSM-III’s diagnostic system.
Operational definition: A definition that specifies observable procedures or criteria for identifying or measuring something. DSM-III translated disorder descriptions into criteria that clinicians could apply.
Diagnostic reliability: The degree to which different assessors reach the same diagnosis using the same information. Improving agreement between clinicians was a central aim of DSM-III’s criteria.
Psychoanalysis: A theory and treatment tradition that explains mental life through unconscious processes and conflict. DSM-III avoided committing its diagnostic categories to psychoanalytic explanations.
DSM-II: The American Psychiatric Association’s 1968 diagnostic manual, preceding DSM-III. Its broad, theory-laden descriptions became a target for DSM-III reform.
Diagnostic criteria: Specified features used to decide whether a person meets the definition of a diagnosis. DSM-III made these criteria central to assigning most diagnoses.
Neo-Kraepelinianism: An approach to psychiatry emphasizing distinct disease categories, descriptive diagnosis, and empirical research. DSM-III’s classification was widely associated with this movement’s priorities.
DSM-IV: The American Psychiatric Association’s 1994 diagnostic manual, succeeding DSM-III-R. It carried forward DSM-III’s basic framework while revising disorders and criteria.
Feighner Criteria: Operational diagnostic criteria for 14 psychiatric disorders, published by researchers at Washington University in 1972. They demonstrated how explicit criteria could improve diagnostic agreement before DSM-III.
Multiaxial assessment: A clinical assessment system that records different kinds of information on separate diagnostic axes. DSM-III introduced five axes to distinguish clinical disorders from other relevant factors.

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