ADHD Is a Whole-Life Experience. The DSM Needs to Reflect That.
The days of the Diagnostical and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) are probably numbered.For one, the rest of the world already defines the criteria for conditions using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10-CM), which became the official health classification of the U.S.
government in 2014. But, more significantly, the DSM simply does not describe ADHD as the rest of us experience it.The DSM was written solely by and for the use of researchers, not for consumers or for practicing clinicians, and it describes only childhood behaviors.
Everything else has been intentionally ignored since the very beginning of ADHD, for the sake of publishing research validating ADHD as a real thing with extremely significant impairments in children ages 6 to 12.Our diagnostic definition is incomplete and grossly inadequate by virtue of ignoring emotional dysregulation, cognition, gender, hormones, ADHD in old age, ADHD at menopause, and the effects of ADHD on a developing personality.[Free Resource: Rein In Intense ADHD Emotions]Here are the dimensions missing from the DSM‘s criteria for ADHD:Emotions: The most impairing feature of ADHD at all ages, emotional dysregulation, was not mentioned in the DSM as a fundamental component because emotions are hard to research.
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