Discourse representation of homosexuality in the system DSM IV

Abstract

The objective of this study is to highlight the construction and discursive significance that the DSM IV system gives to the homosexuality, considering that the meaning alludes to the internal content of the speech and the significance concerns the external (visible) content of the speech. Research methodology focuses on the analysis of contents: discussion, critiques and description of the construction method of the diagnosis manual of mental illnesses in its fourth review. The technique applied was the analysis of contents: identification of the dominant speech, style forms and evaluation of significants. The results showed that the dominant form of the speech is institutional, by the non-discursive neosexual forms. In addition, there is no evidence of changes in the psychiatric speech because its method of construction is circular feedback, that is to say, in any place of the process, homosexuality will be considered as a disorder or as a topic of psychiatric review. The research reveals that the DSM IV system fits to the discursive construction being able-knowing, widely documented by Foucault in which dominant speech exerts power on the neo-sexualities and defines them in an exercise of knowing, registering them in a diagnosis manual.