It is easy to vilify psychiatrists. Their spurious conceptual framework, toxic “treatments’ and blatantly corrupt links to pharma make them easy targets. Their destructive activities, to which they resolutely cling, invite criticism which they steadfastly ignore. Any thoughts that perhaps they had seen the errors of their ways have been dashed by the soon-to-be published DSM-5, which promises to be business as usual, only more so. HOW DID THEY GET THIS WAY? ...
In DSM-IV, a “diagnosis” of major depressive disorder is based on the presence of a major depressive episode. A major depressive episode, in turn, is defined by the presence of five or more items from the following list during a two-week period: (1) depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either subjective report (e.g., feels sad or empty) or observation made by others (e.g., appears tearful). Note: In children and adolescents, can be irritable mood. ...
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 The four superseded “diagnoses” are: 1.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. ...
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. ...
It is a central theme of this website that there are no mental illnesses/disorders, and that the psychiatric medicalization of ordinary human problems is arbitrary, spurious, and destructive. The widespread acceptance of ADHD as a mental illness/chemical imbalance has no scientific underpinning, but rather is based on marketing and promotion. The ADHD “diagnosis” is particularly destructive, in that it targets children, and serves as the justification for “treating” these children with dangerous drugs. ...
BACKGROUND There’s an article by Jack Carney, DSW, on this topic on Mad in America. Jack refers to the DSM-5 field trials published earlier this year in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Inter-rater reliability is measured by a statistic called a kappa score. A score of 1 means perfect inter-rater agreement; a score of 0 indicates zero agreement. In psychosocial research a kappa score of 0.7 or above is generally considered good. ...
Today, courtesy of Monica, I came across an article by Marilyn Wedge, PhD. It’s called Six Problems with Psychiatric Diagnosis for Children. You can read it here. Here are some quotes: "Psychiatric diagnoses contained in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders are not classified by causes like genuine medical diseases." "Perhaps worst of all, a child who has been labeled with a psychiatric diagnosis grows up believing that there is something wrong with her, that she is somehow “abnormal.” ...
BACKGROUND I recently wrote a post called DSM-5: Another Step in the Wrong Direction. In that article I argued that DSM-5 was simply another step in the APA’s ongoing agenda to medicalize all human problems and to legitimize the administration of drugs as the front line “solution” to these problems. I also expressed concern that the widely publicized movement to develop an alternative diagnostic system might not look all that different from what we have today. ...