In practice, its revisions have been met with widespread dismay and alarm. In fact, I have yet to read anything positive about it.
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| Dr Doom! Image by JD Hancock. |
Among the concerns that have been raised are the following:
- Medicalising grief - grief due to sad/traumatic life events (what most of us would call 'normal' grief) is now viewed as a form of depressive disorder.
- What happened to Aspergers' syndrome? - the new version bundles together autism and Aspergers', treating differences as just a matter of quantity. While there are similarities, it is confusing for the public and in many ways just absurd to say that, for example, severely disabled non-verbal autistic individuals have the same disorder as smart, highly functional 'Aspies'.
- Mislabelling unhealthy lifestyle choices - such things as promiscuous behaviour or refusal to be treated are now seen as aspects of mental illness.
- A generally broadening of diagnosis - more and more diagnosis, more and more disorders. Which is especially suspicious when you consider the close financial links between the APA and major pharmaceutical companies - the very people who will gain from the increased use of psychiatric medication.
What is your view of the state of psychiatric diagnosis? Are you worried about mental illness being over-diagnosed, or about the treatments used?
This post is part of #BlogFlash2013 - 30 days of
flash blogging - using
the prompt 'health' http://bit.ly/Y2BMEc
You make some great points. At the elementary school where I teach, we have a lot of Aspberger's kids. Our resource teacher is a specialist in autism and readily agrees that we are all SOMEWHERE on the autism spectrum and in that sense so are these kids. I had five in a class of 30 last year--they aren't treated any differently by their peers because they ARE 'normal' in our school. So in my class, I see 'less autistic' and 'more autistic' kids. :)
ReplyDeleteLinda Ulleseit
http://ulleseit.wordpress.com
http://flyinghorsebooks.wordpress.com
I think there's lots of problems with the whole psychiatric treatment system, such as you listed above. When do we stop being mentally ill and start being mentally healthy, if everything is labeled as an illness. And on the other hand noticing and treating REAL problems seems to get forgot.
ReplyDeleteHi there,
ReplyDeleteI have found your nice blog, which I really like it. I enjoyed to read your posts and stories.
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ReplyDeleteNice article. I'm currently reading 'The Myth of Mental Illness' by Thomas Szasz which is really excellent, have you come across him? Szasz makes many brilliant and logical points and concludes ultimately that 'mental illness' is not an illness per se. I am in the process of being swayed over to his side. He in no way discounts the fact that problems exist - but he believes that defining them as an illness is inherently wrong; the DSM is a hindrance. I'm starting to agree really...
Emma
Thanks for the comments :)
ReplyDelete@edhaz I'd agree that Szasz makes some important points, not least that the concept of psychological problems as 'illness' is only an analogy, and sometimes not a very good one - that's often forgotten nowadays. People say things like 'depression is an illness like any other'. This is mostly well-meaning (trying to reduce stigma) but depression is really not like flu or chicken pox in many respects.
Just two weeks before DSM-5 is due to appear, the National Institute of Mental Health, the world's largest mental health research institute, has announced that it is withdrawing support for the manual:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/201305/the-nimh-withdraws-support-dsm-5
Just two weeks before DSM-5 is due to appear, the National Institute of Mental Health, the world's largest mental health research institute, has announced that it is withdrawing support for the manual:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/201305/the-nimh-withdraws-support-dsm-5