Abstract

The mental health field has not been able to agree on a definition of what is arguably its core concept: mental disorder. Prior attempts at establishing a definition have been conceptual but not empirical, indicating a need for empirical investigation into key aspects of the meaning of this concept. Sixty advanced clinical psychology graduate students completed a newly created measure, the “Survey of Mental Disorder Meanings.” Results indicated that the critical discriminator between what they judged to be mental disorder and non-mental disorder cases was the presence versus absence of personal disability. These findings support the position that ‘mental disorder’ designates a state of disability (i.e., dysfunction or functional impairment), not any kind or species of behavior such as maladaptive, socially deviant, or statistically unusual behavior. Implications of these findings for psychopathology as a science, for the definition in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and for clinical practice are discussed.

pdf

Share