In some
ways, it is inappropriate to list the ICD as an “other classification
system.” It is actually the official
international system for the classification of mental and physical
disease. However, since the DSM is
currently the
more popular system for mental health in the United States, it demanded
more
attention on this website.
The ICD was
developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to create a standard
format
for collecting and comparing mortality statistics.
The first edition appeared in 1900 and it has undergone a
revision every 10 years or so.
The current edition is ICD-10 (1999). Its authors were somewhat resentful of the success of the DSM. Therefore, ICD’s format changed in order to make it more like the DSM. Like DSM, ICD employed extensive field trials and explicit criteria to ensure reliability. Unlike DSM, ICD-10 is a 2-volume work, with the Blue manual offering clinical descriptions and the Green manual offering criteria. ICD-10 also did not accept the multiaxial system of DSM-III and DSM-IV. It has 389 diagnoses for mental disorders, making it quite similar to the DSM-IV-TR.
Anna Freud’s
Developmental Profile,
1965
In Achenbach, 1995
According to Achenbach, there is little research on how to use this system for diagnosis. Much of the available material offers categorical descriptions, such as, “There is permanent drive regression to fixation points which leads to conflicts of a neurotic type.”
Group for Advancement of
Psychiatry, 1966
In Achenbach, 1995
The Group did not provide any methods, making it difficult to use their system for diagnosis. Although their intent was to define disorders so that inferences were unnecessary, their categories required extensive psychodynamic inferences.
Diagnostic
Classification: 0 to 3, 1994
In
Scotti and Morris, 2000
This
classification system was created by the National
Center for Clinical Infant Programs. It
provides a means for the
multiaxial assessment of very young children.
The five axes include Primary Diagnosis, Relationship Disorder,
Medical
and Developmental Disorders and Conditions, Psychosocial Stressors, and
Functional Emotional Developmental Level.
Although these axes are very similar to those found in the DSM,
they
employ a developmental perspective and require exploration of different
areas
of functioning.
As
an
alternative to the categorical approach of DSM and ICD, some
researchers have
begun to propose dimensional systems.
One such researcher is Achenbach, whose classification system
has only 2
major dimensions: internalizing and externalizing.
Each dimension subsumes narrow clusters, such as
anxious/depressed or aggressive behavior.
DSM-IV-TR
addresses the growing attraction of dimensional approaches. DSM-IV-TR concedes that such an approach
would increase reliability and communicate more clinical information. However, dimensional approaches are less
familiar to clinicians than categorical approaches, and there would be
no
agreement on the choice of dimensions.