Long Paper Outline
Thesis:
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders (DSM) is not an appropriate tool for psychiatrists when diagnosing mental disorders.
Argument:
The DSM is used in many psychiatry offices to diagnose their patients, but it fails to look at each individual case independently of the others. For example if a person shows symptoms of depression over a two week period, the DSM immediately categorizes them as having depression. This person might have depression but there are many other factors to take into consideration. In everyone’s day to day lives there will always be pain and sadness, but this does not mean that everyone is depressed. Someone could have lost of a loved one, changed their location of living or just had bad two weeks, but if they show the signs of depression the DSM immediately classifies them with depression and pushes for medication. Of course there a good number of times the DSM is correct but everyone is different and lives different lives. Another thing that the DSM does not do is realize that one symptom could be the symptom for many different disorders. For example if one goes to the doctor with a cough, the doctor realizes that there could be many different reasons for this cough and many different illnesses a person could have. According to the DSM a group of symptoms categorized under a disorder means those symptoms only mean that illness, nothing else. Why is it that illnesses with one’s brain is thought of as so black and white compared to other parts of one’s body? Illnesses of the brain in reality have the largest gray area of any other illness. Just because two people both have depression do not mean they will show the same symptoms. They will have completely different battles to fight with their illness, and their bodies will react differently to the symptoms and the medication. All they might share is that they are diagnosed with “depression”. Psychiatry needs to have a movement towards treating each person as an individual case and begin using the new science and technology they have in medication, and knowledge they have of the brain.
Proposed Bibliography: Cooper, “Classifying Madness” Cooper, “Diagnosing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Fifth Edition” Lagnado, “Learning Causal Structure” Murphy, “Philosophy of Psychiatry”

Intro
Beginning sentences: Write about how in other forms of medicine they do not think one symptom means only one illness. Bring up causal method and the graph they give of the cough and bronchitis. Pretty much just look at the above description you sent Alex.
Thesis: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders (DSM) is not an appropriate tool for psychiatrists when diagnosing mental disorders.
Paragraph 1
Description of the DSM. Talk about the history and how it has evolved into what it is today and how it is being used.
TS 1: The DSM has been used in the science of psychiatry to diagnose mental disorders since 1952. In the 62 years of its use, it has only been revised five times including the most recent edition which was published in 2013. But in those 62 years there has undoubtedly been new findings that have changed the science of psychiatry more “regularly” (find different term) than five times. (So why is it that psychiatrists must follow guidelines that might be out of date or even obsolete until the new revision is made?).
If true then go on to talk about why is it there’s been so few revisions. Use examples of previous things they had on the list they have determined are not actually mental disorders.
Paragraph 2 This will be the history of psychiatry. Make sure not to repeat things from the history of the DSM. Use this paragraph to outline all of the changes they have made, and what things used to be mental disorders but now are not
TS 2: Like all sciences psychiatry makes new discoveries with some regularity. There are mental disorders that have only recently been diagnosable, (Find a different word, because of course they existed they just didn’t know what was happening or how to treat it) (Find an example) and basic human traits that were considered mental disorders until the past couple decades. Because of the technology that is required in psychiatry it is a fairly new science, yet the “things” (find a different word) being examined are as old as human kind. (does this fit in here or put in other paragraph?)

Paragraph 3 Describe how the diagnosing of mental disorders is falling into “kinds” (look at link Alex sent you). Provide examples of the close mindedness when it comes to certain symptoms must only mean one diagnosis even though they are possible other reasons. Relate it back to how the DSM is causing this to happen. (If possible try to incorporate your own story of anxiety and depression and adhd but make it not personal.) (green forms cause false positives)
TS 3: Mental illnesses or disorders are currently being diagnosed in a way that would never be allowed in any other branch of medicine. The DSM is causing psychiatrists to describe mental disorders as “kinds” (look at the Stanford essay on kinds and see if you can make this more specific) instead of looking at each patient’s case individually and taking into consideration the outside factors of their lives.
Talk about how they took out the bereavement period for depression.
“These theorists are skeptical about many existing psychiatric diagnoses, and not just on empirical grounds; they see DSM diagnoses as collections of symptoms rather seeing them as medicine understands diseases—in terms of destructive processes realized in bodily tissues” (Murphy).
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Paragraph 4 Begin to talk how psychiatry is a normative and descriptive science. It includes the experimenting of descriptive science of testing what medications work on the human brain and what changes occur chemically when used, but it also needs to take the normative science stance and view the human life and its interaction and behaviors with its surroundings.
TS 4: The guidelines of The DSM force psychiatry to be solely a descriptive science. It looks at this branch of science and medicine as only observing the chemical balances of a patient’s brain, and working with different medications to alter it. This though is only one part of psychiatry. Psychiatrists must also examine the patient in front of them as more than just their two o’clock appointment, and view them as a human being. When viewed this way as a normative science it is obvious that psychiatry is also a science of one’s behaviors in the world and how they interact with their surroundings.
Conclusion
Here wrap everything up stating again what is wrong with the DSM. Point out how it makes it a descriptive science, and how it fails to look at the patients as individuals instead of kinds.

What roles do normative have?