ABSTRACT
Most people have experienced emotional distress, ranging from minor bouts of anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic symptoms to more severe problems, such as major depressions or panic disorders. In this chapter, we turn our attention to some of the major mental health problems affecting people, and use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as the basis for categorization; this is a generally accepted standardized format for deciding on and assigning a diagnosis. However, it has been found lacking as a tool to provide a comprehensive assessment of the person’s inner and outer realities; it is “comprehensive but shallow, ultimately too superficial to capture the complexity of human motivation, the depth of emotional pain” (Carey, 2006b, p. D5). A new manual was issued by the American Psychoanalytic Society in January 2006, called The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, which focuses on “individual personality patterns,” that is seen as a supplement the DSM, rather than a replacement. Dr. McWilliams, a psychologist, commented that people cannot be looked at only as symptom pictures; “most of the people who come in for therapy do so for a kind of sickness of the soul, or for some interpersonal disaster” (p. D5).
