The DSM-III was designed as an expert system to bypass clinician judgment

Evidence

The apa developed the equivalent of what computer experts call “an expert system” to achieve diagnostic reliability through consensus. The means it employed were embodied in the three notions underlying the dsm-iii: (1) the concept of mental disorders, (2) the descriptive approach and diagnostic criteria, and (3) multiaxial assessment. — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self, 701

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘expert system’ framing connects to how decision procedures in AI and legal code displace human discretion and judgment. — connects to: FDA drug-approval rules forced psychiatry into standardized diagnoses — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing…, 687; DSM-III deliberately reclassified people into disorders they have — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing…, 702
• CANDY: That the DSM-III was conceived as ‘an expert system’ ahead of its time makes a striking, tweetable insight.