Approaches to Diagnosis: Categorical VS Dimensional Psychology Essay

Approaches to Diagnosis: Categorical VS Dimensional
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In psychology, the diagnosis approach is essential in understanding the patient's signs and symptoms because many diseases have overlapping presentations. Therefore, clinicians must have a piece of excellent knowledge on the two approaches to diagnosis—categorical versus dimensional.
Generally, a categorical approach utilizes diagnostic criteria to understand the behavior of the patient. It focuses on the presence or absence of disease by providing a list of symptoms or criteria that are conclusive of a specific mental disorder. This is used to quantify data and samples to allow a better formulation of outcome measures. Furthermore, it clarifies one disease to another, thereby allowing the data to be legible for research and clinical trial use. Additionally, the categorical approach is often used by clinicians because a specific diagnosis can direct proper treatment. This approach's main issue lies in distinguishing one disorder from another even when there are disorders with...