Grand Rounds is up at Getbetterhealth. Maria Gifford, newly-appointed content manager of Better Health, has done an excellent job of putting together this week’s rounds. She uses a straightforward style that makes it easy to check out the various posts.
The central theme of this blog is that there are no mental illnesses. The concept of mental illness is a spurious invention of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals for the purpose of medicalizing normal human problems and selling drugs. The central tenet of the mental health system is that unusual, bizarre, and disturbing behaviors are caused by mental disorders (or illnesses). But their definition of a mental disorder is: a serious behavioral problem. So problem behavior is caused by problem behavior. This is the facile logic behind the widespread peddling of drugs in which psychiatry and the mental health system engage. ...
The central theme of this blog is that mental illness is a spurious and invalid concept, which is promoted and developed by the American Psychiatric Association to legitimize the use of mood-altering drugs. It is certainly true that people display various problems in their daily lives and particularly in their interpersonal relationships. The American Psychiatric Association claims that all such problems are caused by mental illness and their list of these so-called illnesses is so long that virtually anybody can be embraced within their coils. ...
Grand Rounds is up at Parallel Universes. Dr. Emer has very nicely taken an unthemed Rounds and sorted the posts into several interesting mini-themes. From dealing with death to high risk pools in the health insurance field, there is plenty of good reading.
Hallucinations In Schizophrenia Part 1, we noted that the APA lists hallucinations as one of the primary “symptoms” of schizophrenia. The APA defines an hallucination as follows: “A sensory perception that has the compelling sense of reality of a true perception but that occurs without external stimulation of the relevant sensory organ.” (DSM-IV-TR, p 823) In other words: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or feeling something that isn’t really there. Typically the individual who has been “diagnosed” with schizophrenia reports that he hears voices that accuse him of some wrong or exhort him to some action, and sometimes threaten him with punishment or retribution. A number of points need to be made. ...
Grand Rounds is up at MD Whistleblower. With so many posts on a wide range of subjects, there is plenty of reading for everyone.
Delusions, contd. In my last post I pointed out that schizophrenia as defined by DSM is a confusing collection of human problems with no evidence of a common etiology or indeed any valid justification for including them under a common heading. I discussed delusions and made the point that cognitive distortions of this kind are a normal response to failure. When the experience of failure is profound and pervasive, the delusional speech tends to be commensurately extreme. Delusions are not symptomatic of an underlying illness, but rather are a normal human reaction to severe stress or profound failure, particularly in the late teens/early adulthood phase of life. This is the time of life in which our general coping skills are subjected to their first serious tests, and when people experience profound failure at this time, there is a risk that they will drift towards delusional speech. Onset of delusional speech is typically later for women than men, and probably corresponds with the process of giving birth and caring for small children. The potential for strong feelings of failure is high at this point of life also. ...
Grand Rounds is up at Musings of a Distractible Mind. There are various categories (eleven groupings in all), with plenty of reading on a wide range of subjects.
The APA defines schizophrenia by the presence of two or more of the following, each present for a significant portion of time during a one-month period: (1) delusions (2) hallucinations (3) disorganized speech (4) grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior (5) negative symptoms i.e. affective flattening, alogia or avolition Signs of the disturbance must have been present for at least six months and there must be significant deficits in one or more areas of functioning such as work, interpersonal relations or self-care. ...
The first diagnostic category in DSM-IV is mental retardation, which embraces those individuals at the lower end of the intelligence spectrum. Intelligence is defined by psychologists as the ability to solve problems, adapt creatively to changing circumstances, and generally manage one’s affairs successfully and functionally. No definition of intelligence can truly do justice to the complexity of the matter, but various standardized tests exist, and within certain philosophical and practical limitations, they all provide reasonably accurate estimates of an individual’s general intellectual ability, as well as identifying areas of particular strength and weakness. ...