James Davies

Once the first DSM arrived in the 1950s, psychiatrists were expected to use the dictionary in the same standardised way still in operation today

course, sometimes your symptoms will not fall neatly into any single category, but rather span two or three. In this case your problem will be considered ‘comorbid’ – namely, that you are suffering from a disorder that is occurring simultaneously with another (perhaps you suffer from major depression as well as panic disorder).

How does your psychiatrist know if he or she has assigned the correct diagnosis? Is there a safe and reliable way that he or she can test, objectively speaking, whether the diagnosis given is the right one?