Bipolar Disorder  & American Psychiatric Association

The American Psychiatric Association is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the most influential world-wide. Its some 36,000 members are mainly American but some are international. The association publishes various journals and pamphlets, as well as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. The DSM codifies psychiatric conditions and is used world-wide as a key guide to diagnosing disorders.

The abbreviation APA is also in common and similar usage by the American Psychological Association and their APA style guide for journal articles.

At a meeting in 1844 in Philadelphia, 13 superintendents and organizers of insane asylums and hospitals formed the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane,which later became the American Psychiatric Association in 1921. The group included Thomas Kirkbride creator of the asylum model which was used throughout the United States.

The Association was Incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1927.

The APA emblem, dating to 1890, became more officially adopted from 1921 - a round medallion with a purported facial likeness of Benjamin Rush and 13 stars over his head to represent the 13 founders of the organization. The outer ring contains the words American Psychiatric Association 1844. Rushs name and an M.D.

In 1948, APA formed a small task force to create a new standardized psychiatric classification system. This resulted in the 1952 publication of the first DSM. In 1965 a new task force of 10 people developed DSM-II, published in 1968. DSM-III was published in 1980, after a larger process involving some 600 clinicians. The book was now 500 pages long, including many more disorders, and it sold nearly half a million copies. APA published a revised DSM-III-R in 1987 and DSM-IV in 1994, the latter selling nearly a million copies by the end of 2000. DSM-IV-TR with minor revisions was published in 200