The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM) has had many successes and many critiques over the years as far as diagnosing people with certain disorders goes.  It has definitely come a long way since it's first edition, which came out in 1952.  Even before that time (as far back as 5000 BCE according to studentpulse.com) people were diagnosing people with being either mentally disturbed or mentally stable.  For example, if anything seemed off about you, you were automatically assumed to be possessed by demons and the treatment for that was trephining, or more simply put, drilling holes in one's head to release said demons.  This resulted in the person reverting to a vegetative-state or, more often than not, death.  These classifications of who was sane and insane were also socially bound.  If we jump back to when the first DSM came out, homosexuality was in there, not because it was scientifically proven to be a disease but because many people did not approve of homosexuality at the time and did not see it as normal behavior.

Now, if you're like me you figure that after the elimination of homosexuality from the DSM, psychologists and psychiatrists have come a long way and rely on research and science more-so than popular opinion to diagnose clients as abnormal or normal.  This much is true, psychologists and psychiatrists have come a long way in deciphering between what is opinion and what is fact, but there is still much to do in defining what exactly should be considered disordered behavior.  In these nest couple of posts I will look at the DSM and disorders surrounding sexuality and gender or the ways in which sexuality and gender play a role in certain disorders.

-Emily