The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association, is a compendium of mental disorders, a listing of the diagnostic criteria used to diagnose them, and a detailed system for their definition, organization, and classification. This entry includes information on the following: (a) the planning and development of the fifth edition of the manual (DSM-5), (b) the general features of the DSM-5 and changes from previous editions, (c) multicultural and diversity issues in the DSM-5, and (d) limitations and criticisms of the DSM-5.

According to the DSM-5, the term mental disorder is defined as “a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes ...