DSM-5 and psychotic and mood disorders

The criteria for the major psychotic disorders and mood disorders are largely unchanged in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), with a few important exceptions: a new assessment tool for the psychotic disorders based on dimensional assessment, a new scheme of specifiers for the mood disorders, the addition of three new depressive disorders, and recognition of catatonia as a separate clinical entity. In addition, subtle changes to the diagnostic criteria for longstanding disorders may have important ramifications. There are forensic implications to these changes in the psychotic and mood disorders, but in most cases, these implications should be relatively modest, as the DSM-5 Work Groups ultimately adopted a cautious approach to changes in the psychotic and mood disorders.