Am J Psychiatry 1980; 137:151-164
Copyright © 1980 by American Psychiatric Association
DSM-III: the major achievements and an overview
RL Spitzer, JB Williams and AE Skodol
DSM-III will be published early this year. In the first part of this
article the authors describe some of the major achievements of DSM-III: the
process of its development, reaching consensus on many controversial
diagnostic categories and a definition of mental disorder, the provision of
diagnostic criteria and a multiaxial evaluation system, and the
demonstration of improved diagnostic reliability. In the second part of the
article the authors present an overview of DSM-III in which they describe
its departures from DSM-II and the reasons for these changes. They conclude
that in the next few years there should be systematic study of DSM-III in
use, so that information about its strengths and limitations can be made
available to those responsible for developing DSM-IV.
