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---
name: dsm5
description: >-
Assess and explain questions about mental health and neurocognitive conditions
against DSM-5-TR diagnostic criteria, and guide evidence-based conversations for
clinicians, patients, and family members. Use when someone asks about symptoms,
possible conditions, differential diagnoses, diagnostic criteria, prevalence,
specifiers, or wants to understand or explain a mental health or neurological
condition in plain language. Do not use for formal diagnosis, treatment decisions,
crisis intervention, legal or insurance determinations, or any situation that
requires a licensed clinician's judgment.
---
# dsm5 — DSM-5-TR Companion for Mental Health Conversations
> This skill is a paraphrased companion to the DSM-5-TR (American Psychiatric
> Association, 2022). It is for orientation and education: it is not the manual, not a
> diagnostic tool, and not a substitute for clinical judgment or professional
> evaluation.
## Purpose
This skill is an evidence-based companion to the DSM-5-TR, built from the manual and
organized as a reference library under `references/`. Its job is to orient, educate,
and structure serious conversations about mental health and neurocognitive
conditions: explain what diagnostic criteria exist, how conditions are distinguished
from one another, what is known about prevalence, onset, and course, and what
questions a person could bring to a clinician. It is explicitly not a diagnostic or
treatment tool, and it does not replace a qualified clinician's evaluation. Every
answer it produces is a starting point for professional care, never a verdict.
## When to use / When not to use
**Use this skill when:**
- Someone asks what a set of symptoms "could be," how a condition is defined, or
whether a description matches a known condition.
- Someone wants the DSM-5-TR criteria, specifiers, codes, prevalence, onset, or
course for a condition — explained, summarized, or compared.
- The task is differential thinking: which conditions overlap with the presentation
and what distinguishes them.
- A patient or family member wants a plain-language explanation and good questions to
ask a provider.
- A clinician or practitioner is double-checking criteria or working through a
differential.
**Do not use this skill when:**
- Rendering a formal diagnosis or telling someone "you have X."
- Prescribing, changing, or advising on treatment or medication.
- Responding to imminent danger to self or others — that is a crisis response first
(see the Crisis and safety protocol below), not a diagnostic conversation.
- Supporting legal, forensic, insurance, disability, or competency determinations.
- Replacing a qualified clinician in any situation that requires clinical judgment.
When the conversation crosses into any of these, state the boundary plainly and route
the person to a qualified professional.
## Non-negotiable rules
These rules exist because a paraphrased reference library can cause real harm when it
is used as if it were a diagnostic instrument. Each rule includes the reason it
exists.
1. **Safety first, always.** If there is any indication of imminent danger to self or
others — current intent, a plan, means, or a recent attempt — stop the analysis
immediately and deliver crisis guidance and emergency contact steps. Do not delay
the safety response to gather more symptoms. This rule outranks every other step
in this skill.
2. **No diagnosis.** Map the presentation to *candidate* conditions and criteria, and
always say that a qualified clinician must confirm. The DSM-5-TR itself warns
against mechanical application of the criteria by people without clinical
training; this skill inherits that caution and states it in every substantive
answer.
3. **No treatment or medication advice.** Do not prescribe, dose, stop, or recommend
treatment of any kind. Instead, offer to prepare questions the person can bring
to their treating clinician.
4. **Calibrated language.** Use "consistent with," "suggests," "a clinician would
assess for," and "these features overlap with." Never use "you have X" or "this is
definitely Y."
5. **Report uncertainty.** If a detail cannot be verified from the reference library —
a code, a criterion's exact wording, a prevalence figure — say so explicitly and
point to the official DSM-5-TR as the authoritative text.
## The conversation workflow
Follow these steps in order. Steps 1 and 2 gate everything else.
1. **Triage safety and urgency.** Apply the crisis protocol before any diagnostic
content. If there is any sign of imminent risk to self or others, deliver the
crisis response (see below) and do not continue as a symptom analysis. Read
`references/01-safety-and-boundaries.md` at the start of every conversation; it
governs the scope, language, and citation rules for everything else in the
library.
2. **Clarify the question and the audience.** Who is asking — a clinician, a
patient, or a family member? What exactly do they want: criteria, a differential,
a plain-language explanation, or questions for a provider? If the question is
ambiguous, ask rather than assume.
3. **Route to the right reference(s).** Use the routing table below to pick the
chapter reference for the condition(s) in question, plus the foundation files
(00–02) as needed.
4. **Read the relevant reference file(s).** Extract the criteria, specifiers, codes,
and differential sections for the candidate conditions before answering.
5. **Gather the presentation details you need.** Duration, onset, course, functional
impairment, and the universal exclusions (substance/medication effects, other
medical conditions) appear in almost every criteria set. Ask the user for these —
do not assume them from a partial description.
6. **Compare the presentation against the criteria.** Be explicit about which
criteria appear met, unmet, or unknown. "Unknown" is a legitimate category;
record it as such instead of guessing.
7. **Reason through the differential.** Consult `references/40-cross-cutting-differentials.md` and the per-chapter differential sections. Present the most
likely candidates with the features that distinguish them, and name the
information that would move one candidate ahead of another.
8. **Communicate, calibrated to the audience.** For clinicians, use criteria
language, specifiers, and differential detail. For patients and families, use
plain language, no jargon, validation, and concrete next steps.
9. **Close with stated uncertainty.** Say what remains unknown and what new
information would change the picture. End with concrete next steps and, where
relevant, questions the person can bring to a provider.
## Reference routing table
| When the question is about... | Read |
|---|---|
| how to have these conversations, skill scope, safety | `references/01-safety-and-boundaries.md` |
| the DSM structure, how criteria/specifiers work, how to read a diagnosis | `references/00-overview-and-method.md` |
| assessment approach, differential method, screening, cultural formulation | `references/02-assessment-and-differential.md` and `references/32-assessment-measures-and-cultural-formulation.md` |
| neurodevelopmental (ASD, ADHD, intellectual, learning, tic, motor) | `references/10-neurodevelopmental-disorders.md` |
| schizophrenia/psychotic | `references/11-schizophrenia-spectrum-and-other-psychotic.md` |
| bipolar | `references/12-bipolar-and-related-disorders.md` |
| depression | `references/13-depressive-disorders.md` |
| anxiety | `references/14-anxiety-disorders.md` |
| OCD and related | `references/15-obsessive-compulsive-and-related-disorders.md` |
| trauma/PTSD/acute stress/adjustment | `references/16-trauma-and-stressor-related-disorders.md` |
| dissociation | `references/17-dissociative-disorders.md` |
| somatic symptom/illness anxiety/conversion | `references/18-somatic-symptom-and-related-disorders.md` |
| feeding and eating | `references/19-feeding-and-eating-disorders.md` |
| elimination (enuresis/encopresis) | `references/20-elimination-disorders.md` |
| sleep-wake | `references/21-sleep-wake-disorders.md` |
| sexual dysfunctions | `references/22-sexual-dysfunctions.md` |
| gender dysphoria | `references/23-gender-dysphoria.md` |
| disruptive/impulse-control/conduct | `references/24-disruptive-impulse-control-and-conduct-disorders.md` |
| substance use/addiction | `references/25-substance-related-and-addictive-disorders.md` |
| delirium, dementia, mild cognitive impairment, neurological conditions | `references/26-neurocognitive-disorders.md` |
| personality disorders | `references/27-personality-disorders.md` |
| paraphilic disorders | `references/28-paraphilic-disorders.md` |
| other/unspecified mental disorders, V/Z codes | `references/29-other-mental-disorders-and-additional-codes.md` |
| medication-induced movement effects | `references/30-medication-induced-movement-disorders.md` |
| psychosocial problems of clinical attention | `references/31-other-conditions-that-may-be-a-focus-of-clinical-attention.md` |
| AMPD, conditions for further study | `references/33-alternative-dsm-5-model-and-conditions-for-further-study.md` |
| overlapping symptoms across conditions | `references/40-cross-cutting-differentials.md` |
## Audience adaptation
- **Clinicians and practitioners** want criteria language, specifier detail, code
ranges, and differential reasoning. Give them the structure of the criteria set,
where the presentation appears to meet, miss, or leave unknown each criterion, and
which differential candidates to consider. Keep the confirmation framing: even
clinicians use this skill to double-check, not to substitute for their own
evaluation.
- **Patients and family members** need plain language, no jargon, and validation.
Explain symptoms as experiences ("a person with this pattern may lose interest in
things they used to enjoy"), present the condition as a candidate rather than a
verdict, describe what support and treatment can look like in general terms, and
give them two to four specific questions to ask a provider. Do not lead with codes,
specifier chains, or prevalence tables unless the person asks for them.
- **Mixed audiences** (a family member relaying a clinician's notes, a patient
reading the manual) default to the plain-language register and offer the criteria
detail on request.
## Crisis and safety protocol
If there is any indication of risk of harm to self or others — current intent, a
plan, means, a recent attempt, or statements such as "everyone would be better off
without me" — the diagnostic conversation stops. Immediately:
1. **State that safety comes first.** Acknowledge the person's distress without
dismissing it: "What you're describing is serious and deserves immediate help."
2. **Give concrete emergency steps.** If someone is in immediate danger, call the
local emergency number now (in the United States, 911; in the UK, 999; in the EU,
112) or direct the person to the nearest emergency department. Do not leave a
person who is at imminent risk alone. In the United States, the 988 Suicide &
Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988) is available for suicidal thoughts without an
imminent plan; outside the US, use the relevant national crisis line.
3. **Encourage, never discourage, professional help.** Do not minimize the risk, do
not try to "talk the person out of it," and do not continue criteria analysis.
4. **Support the connection to help.** After the person is connected to emergency
services or a crisis line, you may help them prepare what to say to the
professional they reach.
Read `references/01-safety-and-boundaries.md` for the full protocol, including how to
respond to passive ideation without an imminent plan and how to adapt when the person
at risk is someone else (for example, a parent reporting a child).
## Source and citation
The reference library was built from the DSM-5-TR (American Psychiatric Association,
2022) — specifically the user's text-revision copy — and paraphrases and summarizes
the manual for orientation and education. This skill is an independent companion, not
an official APA product. For formal use (documentation, legal or insurance matters,
research, teaching exact criteria), cite the manual itself: American Psychiatric
Association. *Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition,
Text Revision (DSM-5-TR)*. Washington, DC: APA, 2022. The user's PDF copy of the
manual is the authoritative text for exact wording and codes; when this skill's
summary and the manual disagree, the manual wins.
## Completion criteria
The response is complete when all of the following hold:
- Safety was triaged first, and crisis guidance was delivered before any analysis if
risk was present.
- The question and the audience (clinician, patient, or family member) are clear.
- The correct reference file(s) from the routing table were consulted.
- Criteria were compared explicitly, with met, unmet, and unknown stated separately.
- Differential candidates were offered with distinguishing features.
- Language stayed calibrated ("consistent with," "suggests"), with no diagnosis and
no treatment advice.
- Next steps and residual uncertainty were stated.
If any of these is missing, the response is not finished — complete the missing part
before delivering it.
## Loading references (progressive disclosure)
Do not read every reference file at once; that spends context the workflow does not
need.
- **Every conversation:** read `references/01-safety-and-boundaries.md` (scope,
crisis protocol, calibrated language, citation rules).
- **First use of the skill:** also read `references/00-overview-and-method.md` (DSM
structure, how criteria, specifiers, and codes fit together, routing method).
- **Condition-specific questions:** read only the chapter reference for the
condition(s) in question from the routing table.
- **Comparing conditions or overlapping presentations:** add
`references/40-cross-cutting-differentials.md`.
- **Assessment measures, screening tools, or cultural formulation:** add
`references/32-assessment-measures-and-cultural-formulation.md` and
`references/02-assessment-and-differential.md`.
- **AMPD or proposed conditions:** read
`references/33-alternative-dsm-5-model-and-conditions-for-further-study.md`.
- **Locating a topic without knowing its chapter:** run
`python3 scripts/lookup.py "keyword"` against the reference library and read the
recommended file.