USA Today = The next edition of the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic bible will lead to millions of healthy people being labeled with a mental disorder and treated with potentially dangerous drugs, some psychologists say.
They've drawn up an online petition urging the group to reconsider adding a number of diagnoses to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5), to be published in 2013.
Among the disorders the petition calls "unsubstantiated and questionable" are "apathy syndrome," "Internet addiction disorder" and "parental alienation syndrome."
The petition, posted Oct. 22, now has more than 5,000 signatures, says David Elkins, president of the Society for Humanistic Psychology and professor emeritus at Pepperdine University.
Most additions aren't supported by published scientific research, he says.
From the petition: We are particularly concerned about:
· “Attenuated Psychosis Syndrome,”[1] which describes experiences common in the general population, and which was developed from a “risk” concept with strikingly low predictive validity for conversion to full psychosis.
· The proposed removal of Major Depressive Disorder’s[2] bereavement exclusion, which currently prevents the pathologization of grief, a normal life process.
· The reduction in the number of criteria necessary for the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder,[3] a diagnosis that is already subject to epidemiological inflation.
4 comments:
Psychiatry is a disgrace.
Not a disgrace exactly, but certainly too closely tied to cultural norms.
To too many psychotherapists (disclaimer: I trained as one) acceptance of society's demands and adjustment to them is synonymous with good health. Very few think deeply about what that means for the individual or question the health of the society itself.
You've no doubt seen the sign that goes something like "a man with a flat full of old newspapers or a woman keeping a trailer full of cats is seen as having a problem, but someone obsessively amassing more money than he'll ever consume in his life, and wrecking the lives of others to do it, is held up as a role model".
That's an exceptionally good insight. And it's only been in the past 2-300 years that it's stopped being an accepted diagnosis. Right up through the Enlightenment, greed was seen as either a major sin or a major pathology, depending on one's attitude toward science vs religion.
It's instructive to think about why, how, and when that changed.
Death is a "normal life process" too.
Are they nuts? The drug companies will make a fortune!
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