1. What are your views on categorical vs dimensional approaches after going through the ICD 1, DSM 5 and RDOC?

After reading through the ICD-1, DSM-5, and RDOC, it is abundantly clear that the dimensional approach to mental health disorders is a more comprehensive and accurate way to evaluate and classify mental health disorders. This is because the dimensional approach takes into account multiple dimensions simultaneously.

The evaluation of psychopathology is done more along the lines of a continuum or spectrum, as opposed to in discrete categories, according to the dimensional approach. With this method, therapists are able to examine the one-of-a-kind experience that each patient has with the condition, as opposed to just placing them into one of many predetermined categories.

It also enables physicians to evaluate how an illness may show differently depending on the setting in which it is being seen. The dimensional method enables a more nuanced and personalised evaluation of a person's mental health and offers a fuller picture of the disease. It also has the advantage of reducing the number of variables that need to be considered.

What do you mean when you say "it also has the advantage of reducing the number of variables that need to be considered"? - I was of the opinion that the dimensional approach would increase the number of variables as you are taking more than just the present symptoms into consideration and are attempting to broaden the view of the symptoms?