Even minor updates to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders can influence day-to-day clinical practice, from how clinicians document cases to how patients qualify for services. Kimberly Yonkers, MD, a psychiatrist and researcher who chairs psychiatry at UMass Chan Medical School and serves on the DSM-5 steering committee, said most changes are incremental and focus on clarifying language rather than adding new diagnoses.
“Most of what we do is not earthshattering… but that’s really how it should be,” Yonkers said. She estimated that roughly 80 to 90 percent of the committee’s work focuses on minor language adjustments and ...
