Relational Processes and DSM-V builds on exciting advances in clinical research on troubled relationships. These advances included marked improvements in the assessment and epidemiology of troubled relationships as well the use of genetics, neuroscience, and immunology to explore the importance of close relationships in clinical practice.

With planning for DSM-V under way, some researchers wish to correct the imbalance that has resulted from an overemphasis on biologically based diagnosis. "Relational Processes and DSM-V" focuses on a relationship-centered understanding of mental disorders in order to encourage more empirically informed deliberations about the role of relational disorders in shaping DSM-V and thereby to restore the human context of mental illness. In pointing toward revising DSM to help practitioners better assess relationships and understand when relationship problems are associated with disease, this volume seeks increased attention in DSM-V on ways to include information about the role of relational interventions as a component of assessment and intervention recommendations.