Continuing Education Provider Professional Development Resources Publishes New Home Study Course on the DSM-5

JACKSONVILLE, FL, April 24, 2013 (Press-News.org) Professional Development Resources has announced a new addition to its online continuing education (CE) curriculum for mental health professionals: DSM-5: The Intelligent Clinician's Guide. The course is designed to help psychotherapists learn the new diagnostic criteria in the upcoming revised edition of the official manual they use for clinical diagnosis - the DSM-5.

Psychotherapists and mental health professionals everywhere will have some heavy reading to do in May 2013 when the long-awaited revised version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is published. It is scheduled for release in late May, although there have already been some delays. Published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the DSM is considered the "bible" of psychiatry because it establishes the criteria mental health professionals use to diagnose their patients.

The process of developing the revised criteria has been, to say the least, a long and contentious one. Started in 1999, the DSM-5 project has been characterized by widespread controversy and intense debate in both professional and public circles. Now, on the eve of its release, all clinicians who diagnose will need to be schooled in the changes it brings. The new course, based on the book The Intelligent Clinician's Guide to the DSM-5, is intended as a critical guide to that learning process.

"This book was a surprise to me," says Leo Christie, President and CEO of Professional Development Resources. "When I ordered it, I was expecting a straight DSM-IV to DSM-5 conversion guide. When it arrived, I found I was even happier with what I got. It turned out to be a critical thinker's best-case scenario: a reader-friendly book that uses evidence-based critiques to point out where DSM-5 is right, where it is wrong, and where the jury is still out."

The book's author - Joel Paris, MD, professor of psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal, has been a vocal critic of the processes used in revising the manual as well as of its final results. He lists three questions to be addressed in his book:

1. What are the most important changes?
2. What are the implications of these changes for practice?
3. Is DSM-5 better, worse, or equal to its predecessors?

Fourteen chapters chronicle the specific areas in which the DSM-5 has made changes to prior criteria for diagnosing mental disorders. One of the author's broadest criticisms is that the new criteria tend to stretch the boundaries of disordered behavior, to the extent that they frequently cross the line and include some that are within the limits of normal, typical human behavior. In other words, they are "overinclusive," resulting inevitably in overdiagnosis and overtreatment.

In the end, Paris concludes that - while it attempts to do the best it can without the knowledge required to reach solid conclusions about the nature of mental illness - the DSM-5 is a noble attempt. "It is better," he says, to have "a flawed classification than none at all." He counsels clinicians to apply extra caution and follow common sense.

" DSM-5: The Intelligent Clinician's Guide is intended to familiarize clinicians with the new manual, with all its virtues and shortcomings," adds Christie. "This manual is what we are going to be using for the foreseeable future, and we may as well approach it with our eyes wide open."

About Professional Development Resources, Inc.

Professional Development Resources is a Florida nonprofit educational corporation founded in 1992 by licensed marriage and family therapist Leo Christie, PhD. The company, which is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB), the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC), the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics - as well as many other national and state boards - has focused its efforts on making accredited continuing education units more cost-effective and widely accessible to health professionals by offering online home study coursework. Its current expanded curriculum includes a wide variety of clinical topics intended to equip health professionals to offer state-of-the art services to their clients.

Contact:
Leo Christie, PhD, CEO
Professional Development Resources, Inc.
904-645-3456
http://www.pdresources.org/