PDF resource
DSM-5-TR Diagnostic Architecture
Systematic differential reasoning and the discrimination grid, as slides.
AVAILABLE NOW
A$149 incl. Australian GST · 12 months access
Master the DSM-5-TR
Practise applying diagnostic criteria
Study criteria, compare diagnoses and practise with application questions. Built for Australian psychology exams and the psychology OSCE in your Master of Professional / Clinical Psychology program, by a registered psychologist.
✓ incl. Australian GST✓ 12 months access✓ Not a subscription✓ 14-day refund if under 20% opened
Authored by a registered psychologist (AHPRA) · Independent educational resource · Not affiliated with AHPRA, the APS, or any university
Practise DSM-5-TR free, every day
No account and no card. Five differential cases a day, a different set each day for 14 days; then the sets repeat. Play today’s set, drill as many random prompts as you like, or join the Daily Drop email list.
The whole course, in the order you work it
Each stage builds on the one before: read the criteria, apply the differential method, compare the diagnostic families, then practise under exam conditions.
105lessons in 8 stages
Foundations
How the course works and how access works.
- Orientation
- 4 lessons
Method and criteria
Read a criteria set, then apply the six-step differential method.
- Pre-test & Criteria Architecture
- The Differential Method
- 15 lessons
Diagnostic families
Compare disorders by essential feature and time course.
- Families · Anxiety & OCD-Related
- Families · Mood (bipolar & depressive)
- Families · Trauma & Psychotic spectrum
- Families · Eating & Neurodevelopmental
- Families · Personality, somatic & dissociative
- 25 lessons
Practice and exam
Practise timed reasoning, then take the exam-condition mini-exam.
- Applied Drilling
- Exam Conditions
- 7 lessons
Review
Review the master reference and differential grid, then take the final check.
- Consolidation & Mastery
- 4 lessons
Discrimination workouts
Match, breadcrumb and vignette drills across the diagnostic families.
- Workouts · Anxiety & OCD families
- Workouts · Mood families
- Workouts · Psychotic, trauma & eating families
- Drill Bank · Extended MCQs
- 14 lessons
Extended question bank
Additional criterion-precision drills across the diagnostic families.
- Question Bank — Extended Criterion Drills
- 3 lessons
Extended Drills
Extra drills across the diagnostic families — optional.
- Extended Drills
- 33 lessons
Learn to apply the criteria
The problem
APS members can access the DSM-5-TR text. Exam practice also calls for comparing overlapping presentations and explaining your reasoning aloud.
This module
Use criteria maps, specifier notes, differential grids and application questions to practise for Australian exam formats.
What's in the module
Preview the six study components below.
📋
Criteria grids
Scan major DSM-5-TR categories, thresholds and required specifiers side by side.
🔀
Differential diagnosis grids
Work through commonly confused presentations, step by step.
⚙️
Specifiers, severity and course
See when each specifier applies and what it adds to a diagnosis.
❓
60+ application questions
Choose a diagnosis for each vignette, then read the clinical explanation.
🗂️
Print sheets
One-page summaries for major categories. Print and annotate them for revision.
🔗
OSCE integration notes
Practise stating diagnostic reasoning in a verbal handover and MSE notes.
A look inside
See the actual pages
See the dashboard, lessons, checkpoints, timed exams.
Read it, hear it, watch it
One real sample of each format — opened or played here, nothing gated. Each card says where it comes from.
Worksheet
DSM-5-TR differential reasoning — practice worksheet
Ten short-answer questions with ruled space, and the model answers on a separate page.
Poster
DSM-5-TR Mastery — the architecture of diagnosis
The five-part criteria set and the six-step differential funnel on one landscape sheet.
Explainer audio
Audio overview — differential diagnosis
A practical walkthrough of systematic DSM-5-TR differential diagnosis.
Auto-generated captions (machine transcript, not yet human-checked). Below the player and in full screen.
Explainer video
Video overview — DSM-5-TR Mastery
A visual explainer of the diagnostic architecture.
Auto-generated captions (machine transcript, not yet human-checked). Below the player and in full screen.
Why this, and why now
You are buying the reasoning layer that sits on top of the manual.
The manual lists criteria. This course trains the part the manual leaves to you: telling two close diagnoses apart, quickly, and saying why.
Who it is for
- Master’s students preparing for a program OSCE, and provisionals preparing for the National Psychology Exam
- Clinicians who own the DSM-5-TR and want faster, surer differentials
- Anyone who can recite criteria but hesitates between two neighbouring diagnoses
What it takes off your plate
- Criteria you know on paper that blur when two presentations look alike
- Specifiers and duration anchors that slip under pressure
- Re-reading chapters without ever testing whether it stuck
The journey inside
- Map the architecture
Criteria laid out so you can scan a category in seconds, with the thresholds and specifiers side by side.
- Learn one method
A six-step differential routine you apply the same way to every presentation.
- Family by family
Anxiety, mood, trauma, psychotic, eating, personality and more, each with its own checkpoints.
- Drill
Match, clue-by-clue and vignette workouts that make you commit before the answer appears.
- Exam conditions
A mini-exam with no checking back, so the pressure is familiar before it matters.
- 8 stages · 17 modules · 105 lessons
- 71 graded checkpoints
- Teaches the reasoning without reproducing the manual’s text
Honest answers to the usual doubts
I will start later.
Differential reasoning builds with spaced practice over weeks. A last-minute read covers criteria; it rarely covers the discrimination between them. The test drive is open now if you want to see the method first.
I can just use ChatGPT.
A chat model is a good study partner, and the samples below come with a prompt so you can try exactly that. What it does not give you by default is a syllabus in a set order, checkpoints with a pass mark, or a log of the topics you found hardest. The course carries that part, so your AI time goes on practice rather than planning.
It is too expensive.
A$149 incl. Australian GST once for 12 months, not a subscription, and 14-day refund if under 20% opened. The first module is free to walk before you pay.
I already have the DSM-5-TR.
Good: keep it open beside the course. This is the study system on top of the text, built for applying criteria rather than reading them.
Take a sample into your own AI
Open the sample, copy the prompt, and give both to the AI model you already use. It is a fair way to see how the material works before you commit to anything.
I am studying DSM-5-TR differential reasoning. I have attached a practice worksheet from the Mindspan "Master the DSM-5-TR" course. It is one worksheet from a 105-lesson course, so treat it as a sample of the method, not the full method.
Please coach me through it:
1. Give me one item at a time and wait for my answer.
2. When I pick a diagnosis, ask me which feature rules out the closest alternative before you tell me if I am right.
3. Point out any specifier or duration detail I missed.
4. At the end, list the diagnostic families I should revisit first.
Do not quote the DSM-5-TR text at length. If a detail depends on the manual's exact wording, tell me to check the manual.A sample is one step. The course carries it through 17 modules and 105 lessons, with checkpoints that remember where you got to.
Independent educational resource by a registered psychologist. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association, AHPRA, the Psychology Board of Australia, the APS or any university. Study aid only: no result is promised.
Pricing
A$149 · incl. Australian GST · 12 months access
Take the free DSM‑5‑TR baseline
12 questions, then a result that tells you which diagnostic areas to study first. It sits in the free test drive: the first 3 modules of the real course, 19 lessons.
- A start button appears as soon as you send the form
- No account and no card
- 768 explained questions in the full program (including the free ones), across 17 modules
The course at a glance
- Modules
- 17
- Lessons
- 105
- Checkpoints
- 71
- Time to complete
- about 23½ hours
Your progress path
Modules unlock in order, each lesson ends with a short consolidation, and your progress saves as you go — the dashboard shows where you are and resumes where you stopped.
- Module 1: Orientation
- Module 2: Pre-test & Criteria Architecture
- Module 3: The Differential Method
- Module 4: Families · Anxiety & OCD-Related
- Module 5: Families · Mood (bipolar & depressive)
- Module 6: Families · Trauma & Psychotic spectrum
- Module 7: Families · Eating & Neurodevelopmental
- Module 8: Families · Personality, somatic & dissociative
- Module 9: Applied Drilling
- Module 10: Exam Conditions
- Module 11: Consolidation & Mastery
- Module 12: Workouts · Anxiety & OCD families
- Module 13: Workouts · Mood families
- Module 14: Workouts · Psychotic, trauma & eating families
- Module 15: Drill Bank · Extended MCQs
- Module 16: Question Bank — Extended Criterion Drills
- Module 17: Extended Drills
What’s inside
- Orientation4 lessons
- Pre-test & Criteria Architecture8 lessons
- The Differential Method7 lessons
- Families · Anxiety & OCD-Related5 lessons
- Families · Mood (bipolar & depressive)5 lessons
- Families · Trauma & Psychotic spectrum5 lessons
- Families · Eating & Neurodevelopmental5 lessons
- Families · Personality, somatic & dissociative5 lessons
- Applied Drilling4 lessons
- Exam Conditions3 lessons
…and 7 more modules.
What you will practise
- Name the five structural elements present beneath almost every DSM-5-TR criteria set
- Run First's six steps in order, finishing the rule-outs before any rule-in (First, 2024)
- State the shared core of the anxiety disorders and the two axes that separate them
- Separate a manic from a hypomanic episode by duration, impairment, and psychosis/hospitalisation
- State what qualifies as Criterion A exposure and why an ordinary life stressor does not
- Discriminate anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder and ARFID by their defining feature
Free test drive
Walk the real course dashboard and its opening lessons before you pay — no card needed.
Common questions
Who is this for?
For students preparing for the psychology OSCE in a Master of Professional / Clinical Psychology program, provisional psychologists preparing for the National Psychology Exam, postgraduate psychology students, graduates and clinicians revising differential reasoning.
How is this different from reading the DSM-5-TR itself?
APS members can access the DSM-5-TR text. This module helps you practise applying it: criteria maps, specifiers in context, differential grids and vignette questions.
Is there an Australian-specific focus?
Yes. It covers Australian exam and training contexts, including the psychology OSCE in Master of Professional / Clinical Psychology programs and MPsych placements. Cultural and contextual notes appear where relevant.
What format will the materials be in?
Read HTML pages online and use the interactive question bank. Available materials open when your access begins.
How much does it cost?
A$149 incl. Australian GST. One payment for 12 months access.
Is this affiliated with AHPRA, the APS, or any university?
No. A registered psychologist created this independent study resource. The Psychology Board of Australia is the source for official exam requirements.
What if the price drops after I buy?
If you bought a program in the 30 days before we introduced a bundle or a lower price, ask us and we'll refund the difference or apply it to an upgrade. Ask from My Mindspan (/account/refund) or email info@mindspan.com.au.
Educational use only. This module is an independent educational resource authored by a registered psychologist. It is not affiliated with AHPRA, the Psychology Board of Australia, the APS, or any university. These materials are not official exam guidance and are not a substitute for clinical supervision, mandated training, or professional development requirements. See our Disclaimer, EULA, and Terms of Service.