The DSM-IV is an important tool for clinicians. It provides a standard for diagnoses to be standardized across psychology; however, the DSM-IV is not as precise for diagnosing personality disorders as some psychologists would like.

Give an example of each of the following problems identified in your readings and explain how these problems could negatively affect a diagnosis.

1. Some criteria used for reaching a diagnosis cannot be observed directly.

Subjective patient analysis has to take place in most cases so that the clinician’s cangain information about the patient’s symptoms that may not be immediately observable in the clinical setting. If this external subjective information is not gathered by the clinician a misdiagnosis may be made. Subjective data may include information about the patient’s personality, behaviors or a patient’s reactions to certain situations, symptoms that only appear in a specific environment and information that cannot be garnered directly from the patient due their inability or reluctance to speak with the clinician directly. An example would be a patient who presents with avoidant personality disorder fears might be diagnosed as having social phobia when they actually are experiencing a different disorder. Misdiagnosis may have serious consequences if appropriate treatment, therapies or medications are used.

2. Personality disorders can be similar to each other.

There are several symptoms that overlap between different disorders in DSM cluster listings. The clinician’s personal observations may lead to misdiagnosis between one of these two disorders if the clinician relies only on information gathered in the clinical setting. For instance obsessive-compulsive disorder, an anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, a personality disorder have many symptoms in common. In this case, a clinician could reach a