Questionable Agreement: The Experience of Depression and DSM-5 Major Depressive Disorder Criteria

Abstract

Abstract Immediately before the release of DSM-5, a group of psychiatric thought leaders published the results of field tests of DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. They characterized the interrater reliability for diagnosing major depressive disorder by two trained mental health practitioners as of “questionable agreement.” These field tests confirmed an open secret among psychiatrists that our current diagnostic criteria for diagnosing major depressive disorder are unreliable and neglect essential experiences of persons in depressive episodes. Alternative diagnostic criteria exist, but psychiatrists rarely encounter them, forestalling the discipline’s epistemological crisis. In Alsadair MacIntyre’s classic essay, such crises occur in science when a person encounters a rival schemata that is incompatible with their current schemata and subsequently constructs a narrative that allows them to reconstruct their own tradition. In search of rival schemata that are in conversation with their own tradition, psychiatric practitioners can utilize alternative diagnostic criteria like the Cultural Formulation Interview, embrace an epistemologically humble psychiatry, and attend to the narrative experience of a person experiencing a depressive episode.