DSM-IV-TR: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision.
The DSM is the bible for any professionals that work with people and human behavior. It's interesting, yesterday I was at a training and one of the presenters gave a quick blurb about social workers that empowered me and made me proud of my profession. He said, if you need a teeth pulled, you go to a dentist right? You see a specialist for whatever issue you have. He said, Social Workers specialize in Human Behavior. This made me think because I just assumed that people who go into social work already have a knack for reading people and observing their behaviors. I feel priveliged because my undergrad degree in Psychology, and my graduate degree in Social Work really has refined my abilities to sit back and observe a person, listen to them speak about themselves briefly, get a quick 411 on their family dynamics, and come with a diagnosis and treatment plan. As expected, this is extremely easy for me to do when I first meet a person, but I dont have that same capabilitie with long-time friends. First its unethical and second I'm competely biased.
In graduate school one of my classes [Psychopathology] required me to read and memorize the entire DSM. The DSM is 942 pages. Now mind you, my memory is not the best, but, if you are given a topic of interest, its not a task, its a pleasure. I actually ENJOYED reading the DSM and every now and then I take it off my bookshelve and skim the pages, reading all the disorders and symptoms. When I watch SVU and Dr Hong [I think that's his name] diagnoses one of the characters, I usually grab my DSM and verify that he has diagnosed it correctly. I really am a nerd. LOL.
So, I randomly opened my DSM and here is today's diagnosis for the day.
Dissociative Fugue: characterized by sudden, unexpected travel away from home or one's customary place of work, accompanied by an inability to recall one's past and confusion about personal identity or the assumption of a new identity.
Now tell me you arent just blown away by how interesting this is???
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Lmao. I loooveed psychopathology! We got sooo good at diagnosing people. I will never forget when Mark dropped me off late to class, so when I walked in late, Proff volunteered me to diagnose like 6 different people in an assembly line fashion (I got 2 minutes with each).I got them all right! You were absent that day ;-)
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