other mental health professionals that descri bed the essential features of the full range of
mental disorders. The current ed ition, DSM-5, builds on the go al of its predecessors (most
recently, DSM-IV-TR, or Text Revision, published in 2000) of providing guidelines for di-
agnoses that can inform treatment and management decisions. 
DSM-5 Revision Process
In 1999, the APA launched an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of DSM based on
emerging research that did not support the bo undaries established for some mental disor-
ders. This effort was coordinated with the World Health Organization (WHO) Division of
Mental Health, the World Psychiatric Associat ion, and the National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) in the form of several conferen ces, the proceedings of which were published
in 2002 in a monograph entitled A Research Agenda for DSM-V.  Thereafter, from 2003 to 2008,
a cooperative agreement with the APA and th e WHO was supported by the NIMH, the Na-
tional Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alco-
hol Abuse (NIAAA) to convene 13 internatio nal DSM-5 research planning conferences,
involving 400 participants from 39 countries, to  review the world litera ture in specific diag-
nostic areas to prepare for revision s in developing both DSM-5 and the International Classi-
fication of Diseases,  11th Revision (ICD-11). Reports from  these conferences formed the basis
for future DSM-5 Task Force reviews and set the stage for the new edition of DSM.