Introduction to Diagnostic Changes: Part One to Part Four Overview

In the remaining chapters, we provide an overview of changes to the diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV-TR to the DSM-5 as well as render comprehensive information for all new diagnoses. We help readers understand these changes and additions by highlighting similarities and differences among diagnostic clusters, explaining common differential diagnoses, and providing case studies and questions to enhance clinical utility. Because we are licensed professional counselors, we present this information in a way that closely relates to the work that our readers, as counselors, typically perform.

In terms of organization of this Learning Companion, the reader will find diagnostic classifications presented in a sequence of what counselors or counselors-in-training typically encounter. For example, mood and anxiety disturbances are addressed before diagnoses commonly made by other professionals, such as neurodevelopmental disorders. Our intent is to target areas that will most significantly affect counselors. While no guidebook can speak to the myriad tasks that counselors perform or the wide range of settings in which counselors work, we did organize this Learning Companion in such as way that it is useful and relevant to work typically performed by counselors. Rather than adhering to the developmental format of the DSM-5 or ordering our chapters by prevalence within the general population, we have organized this book by what counselors most frequently diagnose. With the role of a counselor in mind, the Learning Companion is divided, by relevance, into four sections:

  1. Part One: Changes and Implications Involving Mood, Anxiety, and Stressor-Related Concerns
  2. Part Two: Changes and Implications Involving Addictive, Impulse-Control, and Specific Behavior-Related Concerns
  3. Part Three: Changes and Implications Involving Diagnoses Commonly Made by Other Professionals
  4. Part Four: Future Changes and Practice Implications for Counselors

The goal of this organizational structure is to assist counselors in their everyday work. For example, the first chapter in Part One addresses depressive disorders because depression is one of the most prevalent mental illness worldwide. The second chapter in Part One addresses anxiety, which is, to date, the most common class of mental illness present in the general population. Aside from being relevant to the work that most counselors perform, this layout parallels the DSM-5 by grouping together diagnoses that have higher rates of co-occurrence. Although all diagnoses have clinical utility within a counseling setting, we aimed to organize this Learning Companion in a way that is most relevant to the actual work that counselors do. In keeping with our aim of making this Learning Companion an accessible and handy guidebook for readers, we have grouped the references of related chapters at the end of each part of the book.

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