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Several divisions of the American Psychological Association have just written an open letter highly critical of DSM 5. They are inviting mental health professionals and mental health organizations to sign a petition addressed to the DSM5 Task Force of the American Psychiatric Association. Read More
DSM-V
Are we all so naive? Who benefits from expanded diagnoses and lower diagnostic thresholds? Who would be very happy to see the changes being made in the DSM-V, because it means more diagnoses and more prescriptions? And who is likely providing plenty of funding to the APA so that they don't have to worry about going under?
Thank you
Thanks for posting this Allen. It seems that the opportunity is ripe for an enterprising group of practitioners to develop a new counterpart to the DSM.
DSM-V
Big Pharma? And don't forget, insurance companies? Obamacare? Wall Street?
How about a new paradigm? For instance -- stop paying dues to
the APA. Pay them instead into an Independent Doctor's Insurance Fund.
Only take patients who sign a document limiting liability and accepting
mediation instead of legal proceedings. Such patients would also
pay into the new IDIF instead of their current insurers.
Publish critical guidelines on me-too drugs, etc. I think change can
only come from Doctors, and idealistic medical students.
Just a thought.
Any ideas who's trying to scare Jonah Shacknai and why?
You can see he's one of the chief architects of the current mess, if you read his Forbes CEO bio.
I like the petition but the pitch for funding the site is off-putting.
There are plenty of effective petition softwares without that.
Important Article
This is such an important article for all of us in the collective mental HEALTH fields. T1hank you for the thoughtful article and link to the petition. I am so happy to see this movement pick up speed. there is a zero to three diagnostic manual that uses a totally different perspective and I find very useful.
DWM-V
The DWM is no longer a scientific document but rather has become a marketing tool for psychiatry and the drug industry. Psychiatrists shifted from doing psychotherapy to mostly prescribing medication sixty years ago. It is no accident that the residency training in psychotherapy for psychiatrists is today only 10% of what it was sixty years ago. And, as the old proverb goes, to a carpenter with only a hammer everything looks like a nail.
One might, with some accuracy, say that the general stance of the American Psychological Association is similar to that of President Obama: both have good instincts but are held back by their innate caution. Thus they behave in a half-hearted fashion which accomplishes too little, leaving their constituency dissatisfied and institutions unchanged.
http://drstanleygoldstein.com
Work-arounds
I am reminded of Amory Lovins in Reinventing Fire. When parts of a system become dysfunctional, the functional parts go into work-around mode. I am part of a group in Portland which consists of peers and family members and regenerative-care practitioners.
We are in ramped up work-around mode, with a symposium that drew over 500 for workshops last spring and with a planned follow-up for this spring. Re-Thinking Psychiatry and First Do No Harm are some titles we have used, and one of our participants has a benzobeware page, as she works herself off.
Sometimes change trickles up. The revolution will be fermented. The top is an oil slick, but bubbles can go through notwithstanding.
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