Inevitably the cutting edge of the medical model will influence those countries that have a less well funded medical system. It means that the paradigm of the medical model, i.e. that these behaviours and states of being need to be classified then changed, can be make a significant leap towards a science.
They test may not revolve around physical identifiers though there may be this possibility with the science of brain scans and behavioural genetics. Abnormalities in brain activity have been observed in many diagnoses. There is also the option of measurement of levels of brain chemcials using indirect routes such as a spinal tap, however these methods are perhaps not practical for general clinical practice because of they involve taking a spinal tap. (Having just checked out Wiki the psychosis or neurosis with back pain are contraindicated with this procedure)
The most likely tests used in clinical practice would the cognitive function tests. These have already been used in research and have shown cognitive deficits associated with conditions like schizophrenia and depression (those are the ones I've seen though I'm sure there'd be evidence for other states of mind). The evidence for detectable cognitive deficits for the diagnosis of schizophrenia are so strong that there is a school of thought that these should be included in the diagnostic criteria and the neurobattery of tests used to justify a diagnosis.
This is in stark contrast to today where a lot of unscientific guesswork is still used. There are tested used in practice, for example the MMSE (mini mental state examination), but these would be considered rudimentary to someone from the physical sciences. Again it is likely that these tests are used more often in America than in the UK. The recent BBC program "How mad are you?" illustrated once again the unreliability and lack of concurrence between psychiatrists who ended up giving no diagnosis to people with pre-existing conditions, diagnosing people who had no pre-existing condition and giving different diagnoses to the same person.
The use of tests in psychiatry is something I would advocate, except that psychiatry still lacks the awareness that these behaviours in classifies may not need to be 'treated' by medicine. As far too often I make the comparison with the diagnosis of homosexuality. There would be genetic, neurological and cognitive tests that may identify homosexuality one day but those with that diagnosis shouldn't be 'treated' i.e. they shouldn't be made 'normal' and heterosexual.
Another point from the case of homosexuality is that it is my belief that some people would get the 'diagnosis' either culturally or using a sophisticated, test-based psychiatric diagnostic system are not homosexual. As in all judgement systems based on a simple set of rules there are exceptions to the rule. The medical model depends on 95% confidence interval techniques to established reliability of an observation for 95% of the people studies but the 5% may fall far outside the expectations of the evidence.
Diagnostic reliability is an admirable goal but the ethics of treatment, the rights of the individual, the thought that treatment can involve behavioural modification and the observation that mental health also involves social stigmas justified by science means that progress in diagnostic science may not be the real priority for advancement. That said, for the paradigm of the medical model reliable and scientific, unbiased diagnosis is a major step forward to ensuring the right treatment protocol is applied. My personal bias considers safe, humane, effective and ethical treatment to be more important.
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