parenting

Parenting and Psychiatry

April 24, 2012

About a week ago an article appeared on the ‘net concerning an attempt by parents to ban ice cream vendors from a playground in Brooklyn, New York.  The piece was reprinted in the New York Post.  Apparently some of the parents are upset because the arrival of the vendors stimulates requests for ice cream from [...]

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Sexual Disorders are Not Illnesses (Part 2)

July 21, 2010

In my last post I described frotteurism, which the APA lists as one of their mental disorders/illnesses. The central theme of this blog is that there are no mental illnesses – that mental illnesses are essentially psychiatrists’ ways of conceptualizing ordinary human problems for the purposes of consolidating turf and legitimizing the use of drugs [...]

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Conduct Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder

April 17, 2009

CONDUCT DISORDER The essential feature of Conduct Disorder, according to the APA, is a “repetitive and persistent pattern” of rule breaking or activity which violates other people’s basic rights. The manual identifies four broad categories of behavior under this heading: aggression; destruction of property; theft or deceitfulness; and serious violation of rules. DSM goes on [...]

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How Can They Just Invent Illnesses?

March 25, 2009

The notion of a professional group such as the APA sitting in their councils and committees inventing illnesses for themselves to treat seems so preposterous that a measure of disbelief on the part of the reader is understandable.  In its historical context, however, the development is not so surprising.  The original 1952 DSM was very [...]

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