The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the classification of mental disorders using a common language and standard criteria. It is an internationally accepted manual on the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, though it may be used in conjunction with other documents. Other commonly used principal guides of psychiatry include the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders (CCMD), and the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual. However, not all providers rely on the DSM-5 as a guide, since the ICD's mental disorder diagnoses are used around the world, and scientific studies often measure changes in symptom scale scores rather than changes in DSM-5 criteria to determine the real-world effects of mental health interventions.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 38,000 members who are involved in psychiatric practice, research, and academia representing a diverse population of patients in more than 100 countries. The association publishes various journals and pamphlets, as well as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The DSM codifies psychiatric conditions and is used mostly in the United States as a guide for diagnosing mental disorders.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalytic psychotherapy are two categories of psychological therapies. Their main purpose is revealing the unconscious content of a client's psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension, which is inner conflict within the mind that was created in a situation of extreme stress or emotional hardship, often in the state of distress. The terms "psychoanalytic psychotherapy" and "psychodynamic psychotherapy" are often used interchangeably, but a distinction can be made in practice: though psychodynamic psychotherapy largely relies on psychoanalytical theory, it employs substantially shorter treatment periods than traditional psychoanalytical therapies. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is evidence-based; the effectiveness of psychoanalysis and its relationship to facts is disputed.
Cornelia Burwell Wilbur was an American psychiatrist. She is best known for a book, written by Flora Rheta Schreiber, and two television films titled Sybil, about the psychiatric treatment she rendered to a person diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder.
Ego-dystonic sexual orientation is a highly controversial mental health diagnosis that was included in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) from 1980 to 1987 and in the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD) from 1990 to 2019. Individuals could be diagnosed with ego-dystonic sexual orientation if their sexual orientation or attractions were at odds with their idealized self-image, causing anxiety and a desire to change their orientation or become more comfortable with it. It describes not innate sexual orientation itself, but a conflict between the sexual orientation a person wishes to have and their actual sexual orientation.
Child and adolescent psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders in children, adolescents, and their families. It investigates the biopsychosocial factors that influence the development and course of psychiatric disorders and treatment responses to various interventions. Child and adolescent psychiatrists primarily use psychotherapy and/or medication to treat mental disorders in the pediatric population.
Lenore C. Terr is a psychiatrist and author known for her research into childhood trauma. Terr graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School with an MD. She is the winner of the Blanche Ittleson Award for her research on childhood trauma. Terr is noted for her work studying the after-effects of the 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping on the 26 children who were buried alive for 16 hours after being kidnapped from a bus.
Jack Drescher is an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst known for his work on sexual orientation and gender identity.
George Libman Engel was an American psychiatrist and internist who, along with his colleague John Romano, was instrumental in developing and teaching psychosomatic medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, New York. He is best known for his formulation of the biopsychosocial model, a general theory of illness and healing.
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of deleterious mental conditions. These include various matters related to mood, behaviour, cognition, perceptions, and emotions.
The American Academy of Psychodynamic Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (AAPDPP) is a scholarly society including psychiatrists interested in all aspects of psychodynamic psychiatry.
Supportive psychotherapy is a psychotherapeutic approach that integrates various therapeutic schools such as psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral, as well as interpersonal conceptual models and techniques.
Jonathan M. Raines graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Psychology. He attended Temple University School of Medicine, where he was awarded the O. Spurgeon English Award as well as his M.D. in 1982. Subsequently, he served his internship at Pennsylvania Hospital and his residency at the Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital, where he received the Glencairn Prize.
Andrew J. Gerber is an American psychoanalyst and the current president and medical director of Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut. His principal interests and research lie in studying the neurobiological bases of social cognition, particularly in relation to autism spectrum disorders and change in response to psychotherapy. He is a member of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychoanalytic Association and the Psychoanalytic Psychodynamic Research Society.
Eric M. Plakun is an American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, researcher and forensic psychiatrist. He is the current medical director/CEO at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Plakun's primary interests include the mental health advocacy, full implementation of the mental health parity law, access-to-care issues, and reducing health disparities; the value of and evidence base for psychosocial treatments and the diagnosis, treatment, longitudinal course and outcome of patients with borderline personality disorder and treatment resistant disorders.
Homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) beginning with the first edition, published in 1952 by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). This classification was challenged by gay rights activists during the gay liberation following the 1969 Stonewall riots, and in December 1973, the APA board of trustees voted to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. In 1974, the DSM was updated and homosexuality was replaced with a new diagnostic code for individuals distressed by their homosexuality, termed ego-dystonic sexual orientation. Distress over one's sexual orientation remained in the manual, under different names, until the DSM-5 in 2013.
Myrna Milgram Weissman is Diane Goldman Kemper Family Professor of Epidemiology in Psychiatry at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, and Chief of the Division of Translational Epidemiology at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. She is an epidemiologist known for her research on the prevalence of psychiatric disorders and psychiatric epidemiology, as it pertains to rates and risks of anxiety and mood disorders across generations. Among her many influential works are longitudinal studies of the impact of parental depression on their children.
Daniel B. Borenstein is an American psychiatrist who is the 129th President of the American Psychiatric Association.
Elvin Semrad was a prominent American psychoanalytic psychiatrist. He was noted for his ability to establish a rapport with deeply troubled individuals. He was one of the most influential teachers of psychotherapy in his time and he had been trained by a close associate of Sigmund Freud.
