Expansion of Psychiatric Turf

On September 27, Psychiatric Services, a journal of the APA, published an article called Blog Brings Doctors, Patients Together to Address MH Issues. It was written by Vabren Watts, a Psychiatric News Journalist. The article is a booster piece for the recently-formed CFYM (Care For Your Mind): "…an online forum for people with mood disorders—along with their families and psychiatrists—to discuss the mental health care system and changes that may affect them under health care reform." ...

On October 23, Psychiatric News (the APA’s media outlet) ran an article titled ‘60 Minutes’ Interviews APA President on Schizophrenia. The article was written by Mark Moran, a Psychiatric News reporter. The piece opens with a quote from Jeffrey Lieberman, MD (President of the APA): "'60 Minutes' showed a genuine interest beyond simply producing what was expected to be a popular segment and indicated a desire to do follow-up reporting on psychosis and violence." ...

 I’ve recently read an article called Safeguarding a Generation of Children from Over-diagnosis and Prescription of Psychotropic Drugs. It’s written by Dave Traxson, who works as an Educational Psychologist in the UK, and is posted on the DxSummit website, an online platform for rethinking mental health, a forum in which the concepts underlying pharma-psychiatry are questioned and challenged. Here are some quotes from the article: "I view the trend towards mass medication of children with mind altering and potentially toxic drugs and ‘drug cocktails’ as a form of psycho-economic imperialism. By that I mean that young peoples’ developing minds are being colonized, using biochemicals, for huge commercial profit and in effect, increased social control. This has resulted from carefully constructed ‘business plans’ in boardrooms which some years ago saw the population of children in the western world as a great market expansion opportunity. The pharmaceutical companies have reaped the huge financial rewards of this rich and very bitter harvest ever since." ...

On October 28, Allen Frances, MD, Chairperson of the DSM-IV task force, published an article on Psychology Today. It is titled Does It Make Sense To Scrap Psychiatric Diagnosis? and is essentially a response to the British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology’s (DCP) call to abandon the medical model in situations where it is not appropriate, and to embrace a psychosocial approach. You can see a copy of the DCP’s May 13, 2013, statement here. ...

There’s an interesting article by Christopher Lane, PhD, in his blog site Side Effects, on Psychology Today. It’s called Crazy like Us: How the U.S. Exports Its Models of Illness, and is dated October 9. Christopher Lane is the author of Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness. I wrote a post in April of 2010 that referenced this book. Here’s the opening paragraph from the Psychology Today article. "The fears of many European psychiatrists may soon be realized. Earlier this week, Psychiatric News reported that the American Psychiatric Association has begun petitioning the various agencies overseeing changes to the ICD, or International Classification of Diseases, to request that they adopt its most-controversial changes in DSM-5." ...

On Monday, October 7, 2013, The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper ran the following headline: 1,200 Killed By Mental Patients. Shock 10-year toll exposes care crisis. It took up almost all of the front page. The headline precipitated a great deal of protest from politicians, advocacy groups, mental health professionals, and others. The general points in most of these protests were that the headline was sensationalistic, misleading, and would serve to increase the stigma associated with “mental illness.” ...

I recently came across an APA article titled Change, Challenge, and Opportunity: Psychiatry in the Age of Health Care Reform. It was co-authored by Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, and Howard Goldman, MD, PhD, and dated October 3. The article discusses the implications of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) for psychiatry, and also reviews progress of the 2008 Mental Health Parity Act. The latter mandated that insurance coverage for “mental illnesses” be essentially on a par with coverage for general medical problems, but the act has not yet been implemented in its entirety. The authors also point out that there are provisions in the ACA that focus on reform of the actual health care services, as well as the reform of health care insurance. ...

On September 30, the Wisconsin State Journal posted an article online. It’s called County Executive Joe Parisi proposes new mental health program for county school district, and was written by Andrea Anderson. [Thanks to S. Randolph Kretchmar on Twitter for the link.] The gist of the article is that Joe Parisi, the County Executive of Dane County, Wisconsin, is proposing to allocate $90,000 each to two school districts “…to treat student mental health…” ...

On September 27, the New York Times published an article called Lacking Rules, Insurers Balk at Paying for Intensive Psychiatric Care. The author is Reed Abelson. Thanks to S. Randolph Kretchmar on Twitter for the link. The article describes the kinds of conflicts that can occur between people with “mental illnesses” wanting “treatment,” and insurance companies who sometimes are reluctant to pay for this “treatment.” The article is fairly balanced. It presents a number of actual cases of people who were experiencing difficulty. But it also tries to do justice to the insurance company’s position: ...

Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, President of the APA, has written a guest post, In the Wake of the Navy Yard Shooting: A Way Forward, on EverydayHealth. Everyday Health Inc. is a media company which operates for-profit websites on health and related matters. It’s been confirmed that the Navy Yard shooter had been taking trazadone, an antidepressant of the serotonin antagonist and reuptake inhibitor (SARI) class, and the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs has indicated that it plans to investigate to what extent the drug might have been a causative factor. ...