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Bryn Mawr University

The DSM and Social Work: Twenty Years after Kutchins and Kirk

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

<p>This study is a partial replication of a quantitative study of social work clinicians’ attitudes toward the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) conducted by Herb Kutchins and Stuart Kirk in 1988, when the sway of the DSM was rapidly expanding. The present study also includes a qualitative analysis of interviews with individual social workers. Results show that these social workers, clearly influenced by professional practices and sociocultural discourses that have favored the medicalization of human problems, are distinctly more ambivalent toward the DSM than were their 1988 counterparts, who were more emphatic in their rejection of the manual. However, social workers in this study demonstrated unease with the manual and what it represents sufficient to suggest that they might be encouraged collectively to champion a new method of assessment that is more congruent with social work’s mission and values.</p>

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Level thesis:degree_level
Bryn Mawr only
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Social Work and Social Research
Year dc:date.available
2011

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Hitchens, Kristine

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Repository record dc:identifier
https://repository.brynmawr.edu/dissertations/66
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:repository.brynmawr.edu:dissertations-1065

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Bryn Mawr University
Base URL
repository.brynmawr.edu/do/oai/
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
related terms
citation

Hitchens, Kristine. The DSM and Social Work: Twenty Years after Kutchins and Kirk. Bryn Mawr only thesis, 2011. https://repository.brynmawr.edu/dissertations/66