David Kupfer, M.D, chair of APA’s DSM-5 Task Force responds to recent criticism of DSM-5 and its previous iterations by NIMH Director Thomas Insel, M.D. In a statement issued, Dr Kupfer emphasized that the diagnostic manual “provides clinicians with a common language to deliver the best patient care possible” and is “the strongest system currently available for classifying disorders.”
Kupfer stated that “efforts like the National Institute of Mental Health’s Research Domain Criteria [RDoC] are vital to the continued progress of our collective understanding of mental disorders.” He continued by noting that Insel’s vision of a system based on biological and genetic markers “remains disappointingly distant” and “cannot serve us in the here and now.” It “merely hand[s] patients another promissory note that something may happen sometime. Every day,” he said, psychiatrists must respond to patients who are suffering. “Our patients deserve no less.”
Dr Kupfer’s complete statement is posted at http://www.psych.org/File%20Library/Advocacy%20and%20Newsroom/Press%20Releases/2013%20Releases/13-33-Statement-from-DSM-Chair-David-Kupfer–MD.pdf.
