[Graeme]

I'm sure I've mentioned before that we are living in a lunatic asylum. I looks like I might be right!

Great for pharmaceutical drug companies though.

Mental health experts ask: Will anyone be normal?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')n updated edition of a mental health bible for doctors may include diagnoses for "disorders" such as toddler tantrums and binge eating, experts say, and could mean that soon no-one will be classed as normal.

Leading mental health experts gave a briefing on Tuesday to warn that a new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is being revised now for publication in 2013, could devalue the seriousness of mental illness and label almost everyone as having some kind of disorder.

Citing examples of new additions like "mild anxiety depression," "psychosis risk syndrome," and "temper dysregulation disorder," they said many people previously seen as perfectly healthy could in future be told they are ill.

"It's leaking into normality. It is shrinking the pool of what is normal to a puddle," said Til Wykes of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London.

The DSM is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and contains descriptions, symptoms, and other criteria for diagnosing mental disorders. It is seen as the global diagnostic bible for the field of mental health medicine.

The criteria are designed to provide clear definitions for professionals who treat patients with mental disorders, and for researchers and pharmaceutical drug companies seeking to develop new ways of treating them.

Wykes and colleagues Felicity Callard, also of Kings' Institute of Psychiatry, and Nick Craddock of Cardiff University's department of psychological medicine and neurology, said many in the psychiatric community are worried that the further the guidelines are expanded, the more likely it will become that nobody will be classed as normal any more.

[Cid_Yama]

First, there is no such thing as normal. No mental health professional would ask that question.

Second, the DSM is used as a classification system to allow mental health professionals to communicate with each other about a patient's symptoms and treatment.

Third, diagnosis requires symptoms to be sufficient to cause “clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning".

The article is meaningless, every time the next version is about to come out, there is criticism, usually by those afraid of mental health professionals and being 'labeled'.

On the practical side, without a diagnosis your insurance company will not cover your treatment.

[PrestonSturges]

I have heard many times that if you claim to be OK, that's taken as indisputable evidence that you are crazy. If you score well on tests of mental health, telling anyone would be taken as proof of insanity.

The problem is, if you score better than the person who gave you the test, you are utterly screwed. Especially if that person is a counselor or psychologist.

Psychologists are completely unable to function as managers because they are trained to listen to passively while neurotic people lie to them, and often have sad codependent relationships with their clients.

[Narz]

Nice article G. The DSM is a joke (no necessity of empirical evidence) & ruins countless lives (especially children's) while the pharmaceutical companies profit.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/arti ... -brains.do

[Graeme]

Cid, I was being a little facetious. BUT on the serious side, please read my second post in this thread. The drug companies really do benefit so PLEASE be careful before taking prescribed drugs for any "mental' illness.

[Narz]

I reposted the articled on another forum.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=373727

[bluekachina]

The DSM is used by psychologists as well as psychiatrists. The difference is that psychiatrists are medical doctors that use pharmaceutical intervention, whereas psychologists use theraputic techniques and do not prescribe medication.

Psychiatrists would primarily be concerned about diagnoses that lack the ability to be treated phamacologically for obvious reasons.

I have witnessed psychiatrists treating personality disorders with medication while misdiagnosing the patient with something the insurance would pay for.(Bipolar Disorder is a catch-all for those the insurance would not otherwise pay for.) Insurance companies generally will not pay to treat personality disorders as they are considered (by the insurance companies) as having a low chance of a positive outcome.

If you have been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder by a psychiatrist, chances are you actually have a personality disorder the insurance wouldn't otherwise pay for.

I am a psychologist with a Psy.D (from Central Michigan University where I met my husband who dragged me away to this God-forsaken place).

The article you posted is nonsense.

[PrestonSturges]

Charles Krauthammer is psychologist, so he gets paid to call Obama a "pathological narcissist" all the time. He's always been a smirking douche and wrong about absolutely everything, but that seems to cross some ethical line. Rather like the notorious shrinks of the soviet gulag who used their titles to get paid as political hacks.

[massymoxieman]

The title of this article should be: Curious laypeople ask: Will any dupe not be on drugs? Seriously, folks, we all need to look into natural alternatives for health problems. If you can afford it, see a naturopathic doctor. Drugs and surgery should only be used if you are DYING. Otherwise you should be using preventative medicine: nutrition and natural cures. The propheteers who run our health care industry just want to make MONEY.

[Ayame]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bluekachina', ' ')Insurance companies generally will not pay to treat personality disorders as they are considered (by the insurance companies) as having a low chance of a positive outcome.

[PrestonSturges]

Personality disorders come with a body count. Death, destruction, chaos, and trauma follow in their wake.

[Sixstrings]

Modern life in the first world is incredibly stressful and complex. Add to that, there's been a breakdown of the family (both parents working, high divorce rate, high rates of single parent homes, extended families dispersing for employment reasons). And add to that, a lot of folks have lost their spiritual faith; my suspicion has always been most people are essentially agnostic. Also, at least in the US there isn't a good social safety net. So when you look at the destabilizing nature of our society as a whole, and the inherent rat race and instability of globalism, then it's no wonder a lot of folks have problems.

On the other hand, some of these problems have been around for as long as people have lived in cities. That could be the root of it right there, simple overcrowding and our basic nature being nomadic and free rather than settled and packed in like sardines.

As for the DSM.. it's been a cliche for a long time that there are so many personality disorders that you can pick anyone and find a disorder to fit them. Is narcissism, for example, really a "disorder" if it gets you to the top of the corporate ladder or makes you billions from your own hedge fund?

[Dreamtwister]

First, you broaden the definition of "mentally ill" to be so ambiguous that it can describe anybody. CHECK

Next, you introduce legislation that mandates the mentally ill must take their medication "for the public good". CHECK

Now, you can classify anyone who speaks against the party as mentally ill, medicate them and stuff them into institutions so as to not infect the proles with their madness.

[Pretorian]

I wonder how much time does it take to make a healthy normal person a mentally ill? Say, put him in the hanging cage and play him " Praise thy Lord Obama" song, over and over and over. Perhaps, a bit of malnutrition and sleep deprivation can help. So how long will take, days, weeks, months? Will that person will be nornal ever again?

[oowolf]

When I was a teenager I was put in a psychiatric hospital for 5 weeks because I was a practicing "sexual masochist". I was given heavy antipsychotic drugs like thioridazine--essentially drugged senseless, in an insane effort to make me "normal".
While the DSM may be of some value, it is also full of a lot of ridiculous nonsense. I've never read anything about masochism written by psychiatrists that wasn't pure psychobabble.
I can tell you a lot about how it feels to be a sane person in a psych unit.

Sexual paraphilias should be expunged from the DSM V. Sadomasochism is not a "disorder". It is a method, somewhat like Tantra, of shutting down the brain's "orientation association area". Yoga, TM, praying, and the Lakota Sun Dance ritual are other means of achieving "nirvana". After years of misery, I accepted myself for what I am and have been happily kinky ever since. But I still don't know why there are always more bottoms than Tops.

(I guess I just outed myself on this site.)

[Narz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oowolf', 'W')hen I was a teenager I was put in a psychiatric hospital for 5 weeks because I was a practicing "sexual masochist". I was given heavy antipsychotic drugs like thioridazine--essentially drugged senseless, in an insane effort to make me "normal".
While the DSM may be of some value, it is also full of a lot of ridiculous nonsense. I've never read anything about masochism written by psychiatrists that wasn't pure psychobabble.
I can tell you a lot about how it feels to be a sane person in a psych unit.

Sexual paraphilias should be expunged from the DSM V. Sadomasochism is not a "disorder". It is a method, somewhat like Tantra, of shutting down the brain's "orientation association area". Yoga, TM, praying, and the Lakota Sun Dance ritual are other means of achieving "nirvana". After years of misery, I accepted myself for what I am and have been happily kinky ever since. But I still don't know why there are always more bottoms than Tops.

(I guess I just outed myself on this site.)

[efarmer]

Well I am daffy as a sh*thouse rat and all of my jammies rotted out and I ended up using them for paint rags, so I can't say I have any Tops or Bottoms left to match or to worry about. The less cheap energy is able to create isolated lives in close proximity, the more we will have to get a load of each other's real situations and accommodate the real rather than previously imagined, variations amongst us.

Not that we won't have some real coconut macaroons left in the cookie jar, I just think the fig bars will coexist with the sugar wafers and the marshmallow pinwheels will have to live with a bite out of them and get over thinking they "are all of that". The oatmeal cookies will still need counseling, and in some cases, perhaps a little icing.