http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/02/rejuvenating-abolitionism-of-psychiatric-labels-even-some-establishment-psychiatrists-embarrassed-by-new-dsm-5/ http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/02/rejuvenating-abolitionism-of-psychiatric-labels-even-some-establishment-psychiatrists-embarrassed-by-new-dsm-5/
After the American Psychiatric Association (APA) approved the latest
version of its diagnostic bible, the DSM-5, psychiatrist Allen Frances,
the former chair of the DSM-4 taskforce and currently professor emeritus
at Duke, announced, “This is the saddest moment in my 45-year career of
practicing, studying and teaching psychiatry” (“A Tense Compromise on Defining Disorders”).
The DSM-5 (the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) will be released by the APA in spring 2013. However, a forlorn Frances states, “My best advice to clinicians, to the press, and to the general public—be skeptical and don’t follow DSM-5 blindly down a road likely to lead to massive over-diagnosis and harmful over-medication.”
And while homosexuality was dropped from the 1980 DSM-3, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) was added, and ODD is now a popular child and adolescent diagnosis. The symptoms of ODD include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules” and “often argues with adults.” Is it any more valid to label teenage rebellion and anti-authoritarianism as a mental illness than it is to label runaway slaves as mentally ill?
In a landmark 1973 study reported in Science, David Rosenhan sought to discover if psychiatry could distinguish between “normals” and those so “psychotic” they needed to be hospitalized. Eight pseudopatients were sent to twelve hospitals, all pretending to have this complaint: hearing empty and hollow voices with no clear content. All pseudopatients were able to fool staff and get hospitalized. More troubling, immediately after admission, the pseudopatients stated the voices had disappeared and they behaved as they normally would but none were immediately released. The length of their hospitalizations ranged from 7 to 52 days, with an average of 19 days, each finally discharged diagnosed with “schizophrenia in remission.”
Rejuvenating Abolitionism of Psychiatric Labels — Even Some Establishment Psychiatrists Embarrassed by New DSM-5
The DSM-5 (the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) will be released by the APA in spring 2013. However, a forlorn Frances states, “My best advice to clinicians, to the press, and to the general public—be skeptical and don’t follow DSM-5 blindly down a road likely to lead to massive over-diagnosis and harmful over-medication.”
And while homosexuality was dropped from the 1980 DSM-3, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) was added, and ODD is now a popular child and adolescent diagnosis. The symptoms of ODD include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules” and “often argues with adults.” Is it any more valid to label teenage rebellion and anti-authoritarianism as a mental illness than it is to label runaway slaves as mentally ill?
In a landmark 1973 study reported in Science, David Rosenhan sought to discover if psychiatry could distinguish between “normals” and those so “psychotic” they needed to be hospitalized. Eight pseudopatients were sent to twelve hospitals, all pretending to have this complaint: hearing empty and hollow voices with no clear content. All pseudopatients were able to fool staff and get hospitalized. More troubling, immediately after admission, the pseudopatients stated the voices had disappeared and they behaved as they normally would but none were immediately released. The length of their hospitalizations ranged from 7 to 52 days, with an average of 19 days, each finally discharged diagnosed with “schizophrenia in remission.”
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