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Claire discusses the evolution of DSM diagnoses from 1952 to present, revealing how social values and culture influence psychiatric classifications. The DSM was created to standardize mental health diagnoses, addressing inconsistencies from pre-WWII. Initially a 32-page pamphlet, the latest DSM-5 now includes 300 detailed conditions. Despite its significance, critics argue that mental disorders are dimensional rather than categorical, leading to revisions emphasizing support for individuals. As Richard Power says, oddly enough, there is no name in the DSM for the compulsion to diagnose people. Hi guys, my name is Claire and welcome back to my podcast. Let's begin with a simple question that we are going to be investigating during this episode. What if a diagnose changes but a person doesn't? In today's episode, we are going to be diving into DSM diagnosis. We are going to compare diagnosis if you were to walk into a psychiatric clinic in 1952 versus today with the same set of symptoms. I'm going to review different diagnosis and break down the changes. So, first, what is the DSM? The DSM was made to make mental health diagnosis more reliable. However, after analyzing its history, it is clear that the diagnosis were never separate from the social value and culture. According to the American Psychiatric Association, the DSM is a diagnostic statistical manual of mental disorders published in 1952 by the American Psychiatric Association. The DSM was created to give psychiatrists a system to classify mental disorders. Prior to the creation of the DSM, diagnosis were inconsistent. Earlier systems did already exist before World War II, but the war put psychiatry conversations back on the table in the United States. The military was in need of a better and more consistent way to describe the psychiatric conditions that soldiers were displaying. This post-war need for order helped shape the creation of the first DSM. So, why are we talking about this? According to John Hopkins University, the diagnostic and statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association has been called the most important book of the 20th century. The article from John Hopkins explains that this is debatable, but the history of the DSM is a very interesting story. In 1952, the first edition of the DSM was published, and it was a 32-page pamphlet that held 106 diagnoses. The latest edition, DSM-5, published in 2013, contains 300 conditions with immense detail. The DSM became the key tool used across many mental health professionals, hospitals, and even government bureaucratics. However, towards the end of the 20th century, the researchers who enforced the categories of the DSM became the manual's biggest critics. John Hopkins University says they had come to realize that the nature of mental disorder was more dimensional than categorical, generalized than specific, and overlapping than discrete. This realization led to the fourth and fifth editions of the DSM that reflected newer political dynamics. Researchers wanted the manual to reflect mental illnesses as gradients or scales and emphasize the support that individuals need.