Labels and Language: Implications for Prevention of the DSM Definition of Mental Disorder.

From the postmodernist perspective, language and its influence on “reality” are both individually and socially constructed. The language used to define mental disorders, particularly the definition found in the widely used Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association, has implications for individual and social behavior including decisions regarding the prevention of mental illness. In this paper I examine the definition's implication that disorders are located within the individual and cannot be merely the result of environmental factors. In particular, the impact that these components of the definition have on the labeling of people who suffer from a mental disorder and the associated attributions of responsibility for the disorder (and for its prevention) are discussed.