A Behavioral Approach to Mental Disorders

In DSM-IV, conversion disorder is described as distressful symptoms (or symptom) of voluntary motor or sensory function that “suggest” a neurological or other illness even though no actual pathology is present, and there is reason to believe that the problem is psychological in origin. It has sometimes been called hysterical blindness, hysterical paralysis, hysterical anesthesia, etc… This diagnosis is being retained in DSM-5 Prevalence estimates vary from 1 in 10,000 to 50 in 10,000. ...

Today, courtesy of Talla Trialogue on Twitter, I have read an article by Shari Roan called Blood Test for Depression Proves It’s Not All In Your Head. You can see it here. The article appears to be an interview with Lonna Williams, the CEO of Ridge Diagnostics. This company is reportedly introducing a blood test for depression. The test is called MDDScore and is expected to cost $745. The article tells us that: “You get a numerical score that suggests how likely it is that you have depression. Studies show that MDD Score is about as accurate at making a diagnosis as the most rigorous evaluations.” ...

In the old days, which I well remember, misbehavior in school was considered a disciplinary problem. This included not paying attention, fidgeting, not applying oneself to one’s work, talking, interrupting the teacher, etc., etc., etc… Then the APA decided that these various activities were really symptoms of a mental illness, and thereby created the ever-burgeoning market for Ritalin and other drugs which, we are falsely told, correct the “chemical imbalance” in these children’s brains. ...

BACKGROUND A couple of weeks ago (March 23), the New York Times did a feature on “Defining Mental Illness.” They invited Ronald Pies, MD (a psychiatry professor at SUNY Upstate Medical University and Tufts University) to submit a brief paper on this topic. Various people with opposing views were allowed to respond, and finally Dr. Pies presented a much longer summary and rebuttal. You can see the entire print version here. ...

In DSM-IV, there is a category called Somatoform Disorders, the common feature of which is a preoccupation with “… physical symptoms that suggest a general medical condition …and are not fully explained by a general medical condition…” Four of the “diagnoses” in this category will be retired in DSM-5 and will be replaced by a new “diagnosis”: somatic symptom disorder. The four superseded “diagnoses” are: 1. somatization disorder 2. hypochondriasis 3. pain disorder 4. undifferentiated somatoform disorder. ...

Recently, courtesy of Lucy Johnstone on twitter, I came across a chapter from Steven Coles’ book Madness Contested. The book was published in the UK in February 2013, but won’t be available in the US until September of this year. The chapter is called “A proven alternative to the medical model in mental health care?" and describes the Leeds Survivor Led Crisis Service, which for twelve years has provided a genuine alternative to mainstream mental health services. ...

I’ve mentioned Alice Keys before on this blog. She’s a psychiatrist who laments the fact that psychiatry has become virtually synonymous with drug pushing, and has expressed her concerns from time to time on Robert Whitaker’s Mad in America website. Alice has a new post up today, called Winners of the American Dream. You can see it here. She has decided to quit psychiatry. “Pills are the only thing left in psychiatry. So I stopped working.” ...

Things are changing in the mental health business. People of various persuasions are attacking the medicalization of human problems on the grounds of spuriousness and destructiveness. Others are drawing attention to the ineffectiveness of the drugs, the dangerous side-effects, and the corrupting links between psychiatrists and big pharma. But perhaps the change that ultimately is going to have the greatest effect is the fact that more and more service users are shucking off the archaic legacy of silence and shame, and are telling their stories. They are telling us that the “treatment” in many cases hurt them rather than helped, but more importantly, that they are now finding their way not through psychiatry, but through something much more powerful and effective: people helping people! ...

There’s a nice article at Involuntary Transformation on this topic. The author, Nathan, poses a very interesting question: since drugs cause damage to children and there are many better alternatives, why do so many parents choose the drug option? Nathan goes on to suggest that the reason lies in the effort that the pharmaceutical industry invests in marketing, and he calls for “…complete and total transparency in all Mental Health Services.” ...

The routine drugging of children for the ordinary problems of childhood is destructive for two reasons: firstly because of the toxic effects of the pharmaceutical products, and secondly because it conveys to the child the message that drugs are an acceptable way to deal with life’s problems. This latter kind of damage is graphically illustrated in a tragic NY Times article by Ted Gup. You can see it here. Ted is a fellow of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard. ...