The Concept of Mental Disorder: Between Definitions and Prototypes

In this paper, I shall analyze the definition of mental disorder included in the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, in order to understand the criteria that are actually used to characterize it. After discussing some limitations of this definition, I shall consider a radical alternative view, which denies that the general concept of mental disorder could ever be defined through necessary and sufficient conditions, and instead conceives it in prototypical terms. As both strategies have their problems, I shall suggest that these problems may arise due to the fact that one concept of mental disorder is erroneously used for two very different kinds of purpose, theoretical and practical ones. To conclude, I shall try to suggest a feasible way out, focusing on a minimal, conceptually-clean definition of mental disorder, which is explicitly intended to be adequate solely for theoretical purposes.