Fox News: Take diagnosis manual away from American Psychiatric Association

[Altostrata]

Columnist Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist, attacks the American Psychiatric Association for being on the wrong side of truth and patient safety.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/05/14/be-wary-american-psychiatric-association/

 

Be wary of the American Psychiatric Association

By Dr. Keith Ablow May 14, 2012 FoxNews.com

 

The American Psychiatric Association (from which I resigned in protest, some time ago) is at it again—making up, then retracting, new diagnoses that their committees generate and debate.....

 

In this case, while preparing to publish its big seller (and huge profit center), the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V (DSM-V)—organized psychiatry’s compendium of known psychiatric illnesses—the powers that be at the APA have decided to remove from its latest revision of the manual a few diagnoses they thought they would include: “attenuated psychosis syndrome” and “mixed anxiety depressive disorder.” They are, however, sticking with their notion of jettisoning from the DSM-V, the diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, while picking up one they call, “Autism Spectrum Disorder.”

 

This would be really funny, if it weren’t really dangerous. The DSM-V will be used by hundreds of thousands of clinicians who may think that they are understanding their patients better, or treating them more expertly, by labeling them with one of 300 or so disorders listed in it, then matching medications to those supposedly genuine labels. But those labels aren’t driven just by science, but by political, economic and commercial forces within the American Psychiatric Association that may have nothing to do with the wellbeing of patients – or with reality.

 

The labels in the DSM-V (like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals that came before it) have really become little more than the roadmap by which psychiatrists chase both insurance reimbursement and applause from special interest groups who lobby—sometimes very effectively—for one diagnosis to be included, or another to be removed.

 

....Without a numbered diagnosis, pharmaceutical companies can’t get an FDA indication to use a particular medicine for that diagnosis. And without a numbered diagnosis, psychiatric wards can’t get paid to treat patients who hear voices or see visions or are dependent on heroin.

 

Never mind that splicing and dicing the range of human experience into a recipe book of contrived illnesses does damage to the miraculous healing power of empathy, which just happens to be psychiatry’s birthright. Never mind that creating a constantly-evolving dictionary of disorders wrenches the wonderful tools of psychotherapy and psychiatric medications into a realm of fiction that can paralyze them—like, for instance, the time that the American Psychiatric Association removed Ego-Dystonic Homosexuality from the DSM, essentially making the case that people who have sexual impulses they themselves dislike and wish to resist need no help at all and are pretty much normal. Similarly, now, for those with Asperger’s Disorder, which no longer exists as a distinct entity because someone on some committee convinced other people on that committee that it just doesn’t.

 

....

Mind you, this is the same organization purporting to represent American psychiatrists while refusing to say just what percentage of those psychiatrists belong to it. It is the same organization that has presided over the near decimation of insight-oriented psychotherapy—still far-and-away the best technique, in capable hands, that we have to truly heal those suffering with mental disorders.

 

We in America face an epidemic of fiction—manipulations of the truth on a scale never before known, fueled by technology and media. This epidemic threatens to rob us of ourselves—what we truly think and truly feel and truly know as fact. And this epidemic has clearly infected the American Psychiatric Association, which puts them on the wrong side of Truth, and puts patients at needless risk.

[Skyler]

Thanks for this Alto, interesting he supports insight oriented therapy.. The APA sure has decimated this. Understatement of the year.

 

Would you check the link? It does not go thru.. Thanks, ~S

[Altostrata]

fixed link

[meistersinger]

Columnist Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist, attacks the American Psychiatric Association for being on the wrong side of truth and patient safety.

 

http://www.foxnews.comhttp://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/05/14/be-wary-american-psychiatric-association/

 

Be wary of the American Psychiatric Association

By Dr. Keith Ablow May 14, 2012 FoxNews.com

 

The American Psychiatric Association (from which I resigned in protest, some time ago) is at it again—making up, then retracting, new diagnoses that their committees generate and debate.....

 

In this case, while preparing to publish its big seller (and huge profit center), the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V (DSM-V)—organized psychiatry’s compendium of known psychiatric illnesses—the powers that be at the APA have decided to remove from its latest revision of the manual a few diagnoses they thought they would include: “attenuated psychosis syndrome” and “mixed anxiety depressive disorder.” They are, however, sticking with their notion of jettisoning from the DSM-V, the diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, while picking up one they call, “Autism Spectrum Disorder.”

 

This would be really funny, if it weren’t really dangerous. The DSM-V will be used by hundreds of thousands of clinicians who may think that they are understanding their patients better, or treating them more expertly, by labeling them with one of 300 or so disorders listed in it, then matching medications to those supposedly genuine labels. But those labels aren’t driven just by science, but by political, economic and commercial forces within the American Psychiatric Association that may have nothing to do with the wellbeing of patients – or with reality.

 

The labels in the DSM-V (like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals that came before it) have really become little more than the roadmap by which psychiatrists chase both insurance reimbursement and applause from special interest groups who lobby—sometimes very effectively—for one diagnosis to be included, or another to be removed.

 

....Without a numbered diagnosis, pharmaceutical companies can’t get an FDA indication to use a particular medicine for that diagnosis. And without a numbered diagnosis, psychiatric wards can’t get paid to treat patients who hear voices or see visions or are dependent on heroin.

 

Never mind that splicing and dicing the range of human experience into a recipe book of contrived illnesses does damage to the miraculous healing power of empathy, which just happens to be psychiatry’s birthright. Never mind that creating a constantly-evolving dictionary of disorders wrenches the wonderful tools of psychotherapy and psychiatric medications into a realm of fiction that can paralyze them—like, for instance, the time that the American Psychiatric Association removed Ego-Dystonic Homosexuality from the DSM, essentially making the case that people who have sexual impulses they themselves dislike and wish to resist need no help at all and are pretty much normal. Similarly, now, for those with Asperger’s Disorder, which no longer exists as a distinct entity because someone on some committee convinced other people on that committee that it just doesn’t.

 

....

Mind you, this is the same organization purporting to represent American psychiatrists while refusing to say just what percentage of those psychiatrists belong to it. It is the same organization that has presided over the near decimation of insight-oriented psychotherapy—still far-and-away the best technique, in capable hands, that we have to truly heal those suffering with mental disorders.

 

We in America face an epidemic of fiction—manipulations of the truth on a scale never before known, fueled by technology and media. This epidemic threatens to rob us of ourselves—what we truly think and truly feel and truly know as fact. And this epidemic has clearly infected the American Psychiatric Association, which puts them on the wrong side of Truth, and puts patients at needless risk.

 

I normally disagree with anything Fox News reports. However, Dr. Albow hit the nail on the head. I just got off the phone with a local help line, which will soon be going out of business, no thanks to the cuts made in Harrisburg. The counselor I was talking to tonight has gone through the same crap I've been going through with antidepressants. She was extremely glad to get off the antidepressants. While I called close to closing time, she isn't enthralled with the current state of mental hygiene (or lack thereof). I passed on the name of this group to her, as well as the benzo groups, since she was also hooked on benzos. I'll probably be talking to her tomorrow night.

[alexjuice]

Columnist Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist, attacks the American Psychiatric Association...

 

Ablow that rattles the psychiatric establishment, I hope.

 

Perhaps this is the man to whom to turn when a blow needs firing.

[Altostrata]

Ha!

 

For our non-US members, Fox News is known as a right-wing news source. A denunciation on Fox News gives the APA flak from all sides.

[drb]

there should be a "like"-button here -

anyway, thanks for the link...

drb