10 Introduction
body of the APA representing the district branches and wider membership that is com-
posed of psychiatrists from throughout the United States who provide geographic, prac-
tice size, and interest-based diversity. The Committee on DSM-5 is a committee made up
of a diverse group of assembly leaders.
Following all of the preceding review steps,  an executive “summit committee” session
was held to consolidate input from review and assembly committee chairs, task force
chairs, a forensic advisor, and a statistical ad visor, for a preliminary review of each disor-
der by the assembly and APA Board of Trus tees executive committees. This preceded a
preliminary review by the full APA Board of  Trustees. The assembly voted, in November
2012, to recommend that the bo ard approve the publication of DSM-5, and the APA Board
of Trustees approved its publication in December 2012. The ma ny experts, re viewers, and
advisors who contributed to this pr ocess are listed in the Appendix.
Organizational Structure
The individual disorder definitions that cons titute the operationali zed sets of diagnostic
criteria provide the core of DSM-5 for clinic al and research purpos es. These criteria have
been subjected to scientific re view, albeit to varying degrees , and many disorders have un-
dergone field testing for interrater reliability. In  contrast, the classification of disorders (the
way in which disorders are grou ped, which provides a high-level organization for the man-
ual) has not generally been thought of as scientif ically significant, despite the fact that judg-
ments had to be made when disorders were initially divided into chapters for DSM-III.
DSM is a medical classification of disorders and as such serves as a historically deter-
mined cognitive schema imposed on clinical an d scientific informatio n to increase its com-