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Posts tagged with the category Diagnostic fiascos
The DSM is dead! Long live the ... wait a minute ...
For years we in the Existential Psychology have been shouting at the top of our lungs that the DSM is a fatally flawed approach to mental health.
We’ve pointed out that there are no empirical bases for its categories, that its treatment approaches are often arbitrary, and that the entire exercise takes time, energy, and money,...
Letting Boys Be Boys, Not ADHD Diagnoses
On April 1, The New York Times reported on the startling fact that 11% of children in the United States are now diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). One in five young males of high school age now have the diagnosis. Among children between the ages of 4 and 17, 6.4 million now bear the ADHD label and, no doubt, are...
Can Evolutionary Theory Help Us Define Mental Disorder?
Editor's Note: Jerome Wakefield gave a presentation on his harmful dysfunction approach to defining mental disorders at SUNY New Paltz in March 2011. Jonathan Raskin served as discussant, and his response, reproduced here, remains highly relevant in light of ongoing debates about how the upcoming DSM-5 should define mental disorder. Video of...
It’s Life, Not an Illness
She sits quietly at the table with her head bowed just enough so that the shadow of her hair crosses her face, blocking a clear view of her melancholy affect. Her fork dances among the food on her plate, moving food from one spot to another but never lifting food to her mouth. Her eyes are hollow and empty, looking but not seeing. Her face and...
Eugenics and Psychiatry: A Brief Overview of the History
In my casual observations in conversation with colleagues, I find that very few mental health professionals are aware of the historical link between psychiatry and eugenics. I was not aware of this history until relatively recently, when I read Robert Whitaker’s groundbreaking and brilliant text, Mad in America. When I read that section of the...
Defining Mental Disorder, DSM-5 Style
What is a mental disorder? This is a question the American Psychiatric Association (2012) has been contemplating as it prepares the DSM-5, the soon-to-be-published revision of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The DSM-5 development website proposes the following new definition of mental disorder (APA, 2012):
A behavioral...
Must read: Paula J. Caplan says the DSM has always done more harm than good
Writing in the Washington Post, Paula Caplan recalls the story of a mother who had been labled bi-polar and put on psychiatric medication – when in fact her problems were more mundane. She was a new mother; she was sleep deprived; she was working full-time and caring for her dying grandmother.
Since the 1980s, Caplan said she has met...
Follow the DSM-5 controversy with The New Existentialists
The New Existentialists, a Saybrook University-based website dedicated to promoting the work of the 21st century’s Existential Psychology movement, has added a new section following the controversy surrounding the DSM-5 … the so-called “Bible” of psychiatry.
“While the DSM has had a long history of controversy since...
A diagnosis of "gender identity disorder" or "authenticity?"
The DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for GID is:
A strong and persistent cross-bender identification (not merely a desire for any perceived cultural advantages of being the other sex). Persistent discomfort with his or her sex or sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that that sex. The disturbance is not concurrent with the physical intersex...
For the new DSM's consideration: "Pathologizing Personality Disorder."
Proposed diagnostic criteria for a new mental disorder for potential inclusion in the next version of the DSM:
309.XX Pathologizing Personality Disorder
A. Marked tendency to see other people's behavior as disordered and/or disturbing.
B. Presence of at least four of the following:
(1) history of studying psychiatry and/or...
The difference between "having" Asperger's and "being" Asperger's
I think I “have” Asperger’s disorder. The “have” is in quotes because I’m not certain what it means to “have” it.
If you have pneumonia, you just have it. There are bacteria in your lungs which are detectable and eradicable. You can go from having it to not having it to having it again, and each...
You cannot cure a broken heart with a paper-and-pencil test
In September of 2011 Time Magazine interviewed outspoken cognitive therapist Allan Kazdin, a former President of the American Psychological Association. In the interview, Kazdin calls for the end of individualized treatments in psychotherapy -- even if people want them -- in favor of standarized treatments.
New Existentialist Eugene...
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