This book critically evaluates the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Through analysis of the history of psychiatric diagnosis and of the handbook itself, it argues that the DSM-5 has a narrow biomedical approach to mental disorders, and proposes a new contextualizing model of mental health symptoms.

Stijn Vanheule is a clinical psychologist, associate professor at Ghent University, Belgium, and psychoanalyst in private practice (member New Lacanian School for Psychoanalysis). He is the author of the book The Subject of Psychosis: A Lacanian Perspective, and of multiple papers on Lacanian and Freudian psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic research into psychopathology, and clinical diagnosis.

1. Dynamics of Decision Making in the DSM: the Issue of Reliability 2. Context and Diagnosis in the DSM: the Issue of Validity