Thread: Mental Illness professionals protest proposed changes to DMS 5

This needs to be halted/postponed for better research and planning/management. The road that the AMA/APA is taking with this latest revision to DMS, DMS-5, is fraught with dangerous diagnoses; Both in terms of potentially declaring criminal activities mere mental disorders and also making normal ranges of human emotion/behavior subject to clinical diagnosis and prescrption drugs.

Millions of healthy people - including shy or defiant children, grieving relatives and people with fetishes - may be wrongly labeled mentally ill by a new international diagnostic manual, specialists said on Thursday.

n a damning analysis of an upcoming revision of the influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychologists, psychiatrists and other experts said new categories of mental illness identified in the book were at best "silly" and at worst "worrying and dangerous."
"Many people who are shy, bereaved, eccentric, or have unconventional romantic lives will suddenly find themselves labeled as mentally ill," said Peter Kinderman, head of Liverpool University's Institute of Psychology at a briefing in London about widespread concerns over the manual.
"It's not humane, it's not scientific, and it won't help decide what help a person needs."

He said the 1840 Census of the United States included just one category for mental disorder, but by 1917 the APA was already recognizing 59. That rose to 128 in 1959, to 227 in 1980, and again to around 350 disorders in the fastest revisions of DSM in 1994 and 2000.

Allen Frances of Duke University and chair of the committee that oversaw the previous DSM revision, said DSM-5 would "radically and recklessly expand the boundaries of psychiatry" and result in the "lexicalization of normality, individual difference, and criminality."

David Pilgrim of Britain's University of Central Lancashire said it was "hard to avoid the conclusion that DSM-5 will help the interests of the drug companies."

Shyness could be defined as a mental illness - Telegraph

"DSM5 will radically and recklessly expand the boundaries of psychiatry. Many millions will receive inaccurate diagnosis and inappropriate treatment.," said Allen Frances of Duke University, North Carolina.

Psychologists fear US manual will widen mental illness diagnosis | Society | The Guardian

A petition condemning the new manual circulated by psychologists in the United States attracted 11,000 signatures.

Among the anxieties to be labelled mental disorders if DSM-5 is published in May by the American Psychiatric Association are shyness in children and uncertainty over gender. Loneliness could attract a diagnosis of chronic depressive disorder, and so could unhappiness following bereavement. A serial rapist could be classified as mentally ill, given a diagnosis of paraphilic coercive disorder.

Peter Kinderman, professor of clinical psychology and Head of Institute of Psychology at the University of Liverpool, said the revisions "could only make a bad system worse". The diagnostic approach, a tick-box list of symptoms leading to a label, was always "hugely problematic", he said. What is termed "oppositional defiant disorder" is dubious, he said: "Since my children say 'no you are an idiot, dad' repeatedly to me, by definition my children are ill." He also disagreed with the label of paraphilic coercive disorder: "In my view, rape is a crime and should not necessarily be regarded as a disorder. It gives people an excuse for that behaviour," he said."

Online petition/protest to halt the publication of this edition without major revisions
Coalition for DSM-5 Reform |

Originally Posted by Alundil

This needs to be halted/postponed for better research and planning/management. The road that the AMA/APA is taking with this latest revision to DMS, DMS-5, is fraught with dangerous diagnoses; Both in terms of potentially declaring criminal activities mere mental disorders and also making normal ranges of human emotion/behavior subject to clinical diagnosis and prescrption drugs.

Millions of healthy people - including shy or defiant children, grieving relatives and people with fetishes - may be wrongly labeled mentally ill by a new international diagnostic manual, specialists said on Thursday.

Shyness could be defined as a mental illness - Telegraph


Psychologists fear US manual will widen mental illness diagnosis | Society | The Guardian

Sounds like I'll be able to get insurance coverage and, uh, "research funding" for my fetish(es).

I'm in.

Cheers,


AetheLove