PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Aderonke Oguntoye
AU  - Harold J. Bursztajn
TI  - Commentary: Inadequacy of the Categorical Approach of the DSM for Diagnosing Female Inmates With Borderline Personality Disorder and/or PTSD
DP  - 2009 Sep 01
TA  - Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
PG  - 306--309
VI  - 37
IP  - 3
4099  - http://jaapl.org/content/37/3/306.short
4100  - http://jaapl.org/content/37/3/306.full
SO  - J Am Acad Psychiatry Law2009 Sep 01; 37
AB  - Warren and her colleagues’ timely exploration of the difficulties and uncertainties in diagnosing PTSD and personality disorders in the female inmate population raises fundamental questions for clinical as well as forensic analysis. Questions of under-reporting, over-reporting, and comorbidity in this population point to serious inadequacies in the scheme of categorical, context-independent diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The interplay of predisposition, life history, and current setting and circumstances can best be captured by a progressive refining of probability estimates. Such a diagnostic process calls for psychodynamically informed clinical and forensic interviewing. Additional recommendations are made for the purpose of achieving multidimensional, context-sensitive diagnosis and forensic evaluation.