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Everyday practice often relies on a very narrow slice of the DSM.

Screening tools are focused on depression and anxiety but are missing many other key symptoms and patterns.

To truly understand a patient, we must also consider their context.

In every branch of medicine, diagnosis is the foundation of effective care. Cardiologists don’t treat “chest pain”; they determine whether it’s coronary artery disease, arrhythmia, or something else entirely. Oncologists don’t treat “fatigue”—they identify tumor type, stage, and molecular drivers before initiating treatment. Psychiatry has an equally sophisticated diagnostic framework. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders outlines a vast range of conditions, reflecting the complexity of human psychology and behavior. And yet, in everyday practice, we often rely on only a small fraction of it.

The Narrow Lens We’ve Defaulted to

In many outpatient settings today, assessment has become synonymous with a handful of tools; most commonly, the PHQ-9 and GAD-7. These are valuable instruments. They are efficient, validated, and useful for tracking symptoms over time. But they are also limited. They focus primarily on depression and generalized anxiety—two important conditions, but far from the........

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