Carving nature at its joints? Observations on a revised psychiatric nomenclature

The recent decision by the American Psychiatric Association to revise its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders provides an opportunity for psychologists and other interested professionals to examine assumptions that underlie classification systems used in mental health settings. The present article attempts to underscore the influence of classification systems in this field on our cognitive activity as clinicians, to place the medical model that underlies DSM-III in perspective within contemporary thought in the philosophy of science, and to comment on some specific changes in the new manual.