DSMs e depressão: dos sujeitos singulares aos transtornos universais

Abstract

This study intends to discuss the issue of categorizing mental disorders, considering DSMs and its paradigms. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM) is a handbook, used worldwide, for mental professionals that lists different categories of mental disorder, according to the American Psychiatric Association. The DSM has gone through five revisions (DSM II, DSM III, DSM III-R, DSM IV e DSM IV- TR) since it was first published in 1952. Electing the concept of depression, this study analyses its diagnosis´ criteria from DSM II, a psychoanalytic influenced manual to DSM IV-TR, with an emphasis upon DSM III which, in 1980, represents a turning point in psychiatric paradigms, intending to be not theoretical and descriptive . From this perspective, the intention is to outline some considerations and discussions between the so-called biological psychiatric and the psychoanalytic theory, according to its influences in the psychiatric diagnosis´ understanding, emphasizing the category of depression.