Terms of Use

Welcome to Manual of Mental Disorders, available at manualofmentaldisorders.com ("Site," "we," "us," or "our").

These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Site, including its articles, educational materials, directories, search functionality, classifications, symptom information, treatment information, references, and other content or features.

By accessing or using the Site, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to these Terms.

If you do not agree with these Terms, please discontinue use of the Site.

Manual of Mental Disorders is an educational and informational website providing general information relating to topics such as:

• Mental disorders;
• Mental health conditions;
• Symptoms and signs;
• Categories of disorders;
• Classification systems;
• Treatment approaches;
• Risk factors;
• Related conditions;
• Mental-health terminology;
• Research and academic information; and
• Other educational mental-health topics.

The Site is intended to improve general understanding and access to educational mental-health information.

It is not a medical or healthcare service.

Content provided through the Site is for general educational and informational purposes only.

Nothing on the Site should be interpreted as:

• Medical advice;
• Psychiatric advice;
• Psychological advice;
• A diagnosis;
• A clinical assessment;
• A treatment recommendation tailored to an individual;
• A prescription;
• A substitute for therapy;
• A substitute for professional medical consultation; or
• A substitute for emergency medical or mental-health services.

You should not use information on this Site to diagnose yourself or another person.

Mental-health symptoms may have multiple causes, may overlap across different conditions, and may require professional clinical assessment.

Questions about your own health, symptoms, diagnosis, medication, or treatment should be discussed with an appropriately qualified healthcare professional.

Use of this Site does not create a:

• Doctor-patient relationship;
• Psychiatrist-patient relationship;
• Psychologist-client relationship;
• Therapist-client relationship;
• Counselor-client relationship; or
• Other healthcare professional relationship.

No such relationship is created by:

• Reading Site content;
• Using search functionality;
• Reviewing disorder or symptom pages;
• Following links;
• Sending general inquiries; or
• Otherwise interacting with the Site.

The Site is not an emergency service or crisis-intervention service.

Do not rely on the Site for assistance during an immediate medical, psychiatric, or safety emergency.

If you or another person may be in immediate danger, may harm themselves or someone else, or requires urgent medical or psychiatric assistance, contact appropriate local emergency services or a qualified crisis-support service in your location.

Our Crisis Resources page may provide links to third-party organizations for informational purposes.

We do not operate those third-party services and cannot guarantee their availability, response times, practices, or suitability for a particular situation.

The Site may discuss mental-health disorders, classifications, symptoms, diagnostic concepts, terminology, and related educational subjects.

Such information is provided to assist with general education and understanding.

Information presented on the Site should not be used as a standalone diagnostic instrument.

Only appropriately trained professionals should make clinical diagnoses based on appropriate professional evaluation and applicable professional standards.

The presence of one or more symptoms described on the Site does not necessarily mean that a person has a particular disorder.

Similarly, the absence of a particular symptom does not necessarily exclude a disorder.

The Site may discuss concepts, terminology, classifications, or subjects associated with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, including DSM-5 and DSM-5-TR, for educational, commentary, reference, comparative, or informational purposes.

Manual of Mental Disorders is an independent educational website.

Unless expressly stated otherwise:

• We are not the publisher of DSM-5 or DSM-5-TR;
• We are not affiliated with the American Psychiatric Association;
• We are not sponsored by the American Psychiatric Association;
• We are not endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association; and
• The Site should not be understood as an official DSM publication or replacement for an authorized edition of the DSM.

Third-party names, publications, terminology, trademarks, service marks, copyrighted materials, and other intellectual property remain the property of their respective owners.

The Site is intended to provide independently written educational content and should not reproduce protected third-party material beyond uses that are appropriately authorized or otherwise permitted by applicable law.

References to third-party publications or classification systems do not imply sponsorship, affiliation, authorization, or endorsement.

The Site may also reference or discuss other medical or mental-health classification systems, standards, organizations, publications, or terminology.

Any such references are provided for educational or informational purposes.

Ownership of third-party intellectual property remains with the applicable rights holders.

We aim to provide useful, responsible, and appropriately reviewed educational information.

However, medicine, psychiatry, psychology, terminology, diagnostic practices, classification systems, treatment research, and professional recommendations may change over time.

We do not guarantee that every piece of content will always be:

• Complete;
• Error-free;
• Current;
• Applicable to every jurisdiction;
• Applicable to every person; or
• Suitable for a particular clinical situation.

Content may be corrected, updated, expanded, reviewed, reorganized, or removed without notice.

Where appropriate, users should verify important health information with qualified healthcare professionals and authoritative sources.

The Site may use editorial and medical-review processes designed to improve the quality and reliability of published content.

Our practices are described further in our:

• Editorial Policy;
• Medical Review Policy;
• Sources & Methodology page; and
• Medical Disclaimer.

The existence of an editorial or medical review process does not convert general educational content into individualized medical advice.

The Site may contain general educational information regarding treatment approaches, including topics such as:

• Psychotherapy;
• Medications;
• Behavioral interventions;
• Lifestyle interventions;
• Supportive care;
• Clinical monitoring; and
• Other treatment concepts.

Treatment information is not a recommendation that any particular treatment is appropriate for you or another individual.

Treatment decisions should be made with appropriately qualified healthcare professionals after considering an individual's circumstances, medical history, risks, benefits, contraindications, preferences, and other relevant factors.

Do not start, stop, increase, decrease, or otherwise modify prescribed medication solely because of information found on this Site.

Subject to these Terms, you may use the Site for lawful personal, educational, research, and informational purposes.

You may:

• Browse publicly available pages;
• Read educational content;
• Link to publicly accessible pages;
• Cite or reference our original material in accordance with applicable law and appropriate attribution; and
• Use Site functionality for its intended purpose.

Your use must comply with applicable laws and must not interfere with the security, availability, or operation of the Site.

You may not use the Site to:

• Violate applicable law;
• Commit fraud or deception;
• Attempt unauthorized access to servers, databases, accounts, systems, or administrative areas;
• Circumvent authentication or security controls;
• Introduce malware, viruses, malicious scripts, or harmful code;
• Conduct denial-of-service or similar attacks;
• Probe or scan systems for vulnerabilities without authorization;
• Harvest personal information unlawfully;
• Impersonate another person or organization;
• Misrepresent affiliation with the Site;
• Use the Site to harass, threaten, abuse, or harm others;
• Copy or republish substantial portions of Site content in violation of intellectual-property rights;
• Remove copyright or proprietary notices;
• Misrepresent Site content as professional medical advice;
• Present Site content as an official clinical diagnosis;
• Create misleading copies or mirrors of the Site;
• Use automated systems in a manner that materially disrupts Site operations; or
• Assist another person in conducting prohibited activity.

We may restrict or block access where reasonably necessary to protect the Site, users, infrastructure, or our legal rights.

Search engines and legitimate indexing services may access publicly available Site content in accordance with our technical controls, including applicable robots directives.

Other automated collection, crawling, scraping, extraction, or bulk downloading may be restricted where it:

• Creates an unreasonable load on our infrastructure;
• Bypasses technical restrictions;
• Interferes with normal Site operation;
• Is used to reproduce substantial portions of our content;
• Violates intellectual-property rights;
• Collects personal information unlawfully; or
• Is otherwise prohibited by applicable law.

We reserve the right to implement technical measures to protect the Site against abusive automated activity.

Unless expressly permitted by us or otherwise permitted under applicable law, you may not systematically reproduce or extract substantial portions of our original Site content for the purpose of creating, training, fine-tuning, supplying, or commercially operating a competing content database or service.

Nothing in this section is intended to prohibit uses that cannot lawfully be restricted under applicable law.

Except for third-party material and content otherwise identified, the Site and its original materials may include intellectual property owned by or licensed to the Site operator.

This may include:

• Original articles;
• Explanatory text;
• Site organization;
• Page layouts;
• Original graphics;
• Branding;
• Logos;
• Database organization;
• Original taxonomies;
• Software;
• User-interface elements; and
• Other original materials.

Use of the Site does not transfer ownership of our intellectual property to you.

Except as permitted by law or expressly authorized, Site content may not be reproduced, redistributed, sold, licensed, republished, or commercially exploited in substantial form without appropriate permission.

We respect intellectual-property rights.

If you believe material appearing on the Site infringes your copyright or other intellectual-property rights, you may contact us at:

Copyright Contact: info@manualofmentaldisorders.com

Your notice should provide sufficient information for us to identify and review the material at issue.

If the Site later allows users to submit comments, feedback, messages, corrections, suggestions, reviews, or other content, users remain responsible for the information they submit.

Users must not submit:

• Unlawful material;
• Defamatory material;
• Material that infringes third-party rights;
• Malicious code;
• Private information about another person without appropriate authorization; or
• Content that violates these Terms.

The Site may contain links to external resources operated by third parties, including:

• Government agencies;
• Academic institutions;
• Healthcare organizations;
• Research databases;
• Medical publications;
• Crisis-support organizations;
• Professional associations; and
• Other informational websites.

Third-party links are provided for convenience and informational purposes.

We do not control independent third-party websites and are not responsible for their:

• Content;
• Privacy practices;
• Security;
• Availability;
• Accuracy;
• Products;
• Services; or
• Terms.

A link does not necessarily constitute endorsement.

Use of third-party services is subject to the terms and policies of those providers.

Your use of the Site is also subject to our Privacy Policy, which explains how information may be collected, used, stored, disclosed, and protected.

The Privacy Policy forms an important part of the terms governing use of the Site.

We aim to maintain reliable access to the Site but do not guarantee uninterrupted availability.

The Site may occasionally become unavailable because of:

• Maintenance;
• Software updates;
• Infrastructure failures;
• Cybersecurity incidents;
• Network failures;
• Third-party service outages;
• Changes to functionality; or
• Circumstances outside our reasonable control.

We may modify, suspend, restrict, or discontinue any portion of the Site where reasonably necessary.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the Site and its content are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis.

We do not make warranties that the Site will be:

• Uninterrupted;
• Completely secure;
• Error-free;
• Free from harmful components;
• Completely accurate;
• Complete;
• Continuously updated; or
• Appropriate for every individual or situation.

Nothing in these Terms excludes warranties or protections that cannot legally be excluded under applicable law.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the Site operator and its applicable officers, employees, contributors, reviewers, contractors, licensors, and service providers will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or similar damages resulting from or relating to:

• Use of the Site;
• Inability to access the Site;
• Reliance on Site content;
• Decisions made based on Site content;
• Third-party resources;
• Technical failures;
• Loss of data; or
• Unauthorized access beyond our reasonable control.

In particular, the Site should not be relied upon as a replacement for professional healthcare evaluation, diagnosis, treatment, or emergency assistance.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limitations of liability. Where those laws apply, these provisions will apply only to the maximum extent legally permitted.

You are responsible for how you use information obtained through the Site.

You acknowledge that health and mental-health decisions can have significant consequences and that general online information cannot account for every individual's circumstances.

You should seek appropriately qualified professional assistance when decisions require individualized medical, psychiatric, psychological, therapeutic, legal, or other professional judgment.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to be responsible for losses, liabilities, damages, claims, or reasonable costs resulting from your unlawful misuse of the Site or material violation of these Terms.

This provision does not apply where prohibited by applicable consumer-protection law.

We may restrict, suspend, or terminate access to all or part of the Site where we reasonably believe that a user:

• Has materially violated these Terms;
• Has attempted to compromise Site security;
• Has abused Site infrastructure;
• Has engaged in unlawful activity;
• Has infringed intellectual-property rights; or
• Presents a material risk to the Site or its users.

Where appropriate, we may use technical controls to prevent repeated abuse.

We may modify, update, reorganize, replace, or remove Site content or functionality from time to time.

This may include changes to:

• Disorder pages;
• Symptom information;
• Treatment information;
• Classification information;
• Site navigation;
• Search functionality;
• Editorial content;
• Sources;
• Features; and
• Technical infrastructure.

We are not obligated to maintain any specific article or feature indefinitely.

We may update these Terms when necessary to reflect:

• Changes in Site functionality;
• Changes in our business or organizational structure;
• Changes to applicable law;
• New services or features;
• Security requirements; or
• Changes to our policies.

When these Terms are updated, the Last Updated date at the top of the page will be revised.

Continued use of the Site after updated Terms become effective may constitute acceptance of those Terms to the extent permitted by applicable law.

If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid, unlawful, or unenforceable, that provision will be interpreted or limited to the extent reasonably necessary, while the remaining provisions will continue in effect where permitted by law.

Failure to enforce a provision of these Terms on one occasion does not necessarily waive the right to enforce that provision or another provision in the future.

These Terms, together with applicable policies referenced through the Site, including the Privacy Policy and Medical Disclaimer, constitute the applicable agreement governing use of the Site, subject to any additional terms that may apply to specific features.

Questions regarding these Terms may be directed to:

Manual of Mental Disorders

Website: manualofmentaldisorders.com

Email: info@manualofmentaldisorders.com