By zarathustra, on August 1st, 2010
In the past couple of days two different articles have appeared on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website, both critiquing the proposed 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. DSM-5 to its mates. If you haven’t come across it, this is the manual produced by the American Psychiatric Association, giving a shopping catalogue of psychiatric diagnoses. One of them may be yours to keep.
Of the two critiques, one is written by a clinical psychologist, Dorothy Rowe. The other by a Lacanian psychoanalyst, Darian Leader. Both make reasonable points about the various difficulties of defining mental illness. Both then go on to say more about their own ideological biases than they do about psychiatry.
Continue reading Deconstructing DSM
By zarathustra, on February 17th, 2010
We’ve been a bit behind the curve in making any comment on the recently-released draft of the DSM-5. Some very good critiques and analyses have already been posted on the blogowebs, notably by Neuroskeptic and Mindhacks. See also Abysmal Musings and Confessions of a Serial Insomniac for their thoughts on what this will mean for their respective diagnoses of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.
Neuroskeptic acerbically comments that, “If, as everyone says, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is the Bible of Psychiatry, I’m not sure why it gets heavily edited once every ten years or so.” Kind of like the Gospels being rewritten regularly to give a clearer idea of what they think Jesus meant to say. Though some people seem to think that’s not such a silly idea.
Rather than go over the same ground as those bloggers I’ve listed above, I think I’ll focus specifically on the childhood disorders, since that’s my field.
Continue reading DSM-5 and the Kids
By star runner, on September 6th, 2009
(Guest post by Star Runner)
I would really appreciate some input. About 18 months ago i was diagnosed by my GP as suffering from depression. CRHTT became involved and after a couple of weeks was admitted to hospital where i spent the majority of the last year – most of this under MHA Section. [...]
By zarathustra, on June 16th, 2009
(This is a guest post by DeeDee Ramona, originally published here)
I am absolutely raging now, at this article.
This is an article supposedly reviewing a book on mania by a medic who has frequently blew the whistle on shoddy research into psychiatric medication by Big Pharma. All well and good. But that’s not what it is. This article is yet another attack on the mentally ill for taking medication.
It’s a hatchet job, from the arts and entertainment section of the Times – specifically, the Literary Supplement – of the diagnosis of manic depression, done by being quite selective about what is actually mentioned about the book in question.
Continue reading Really Angry about this article in the Times
By Mr Ian, on January 30th, 2009
For the ongoing success of psychiatry, I have come to realise that we are potentially likely to become ‘employably challenged’ if we actually ever do “cure” people. So I think it utterly necessary to find new ways of sustaining employment in Psychiatry.
Here begins the first in a series of How to… guides that will equip us to provide a prolific future of “service users”
[I'm taking the piss, just in case it needs pointing out].
Beginning with the most contrite of Mentals I will teach everyone how to make your very own Borderline Personality Disordered patient.
Ingredients:
One moderately messed up kid.*
Continue reading MN Guide: How to… Make a Borderline Personality Disorder
By Mr Ian, on January 7th, 2009
NeuroAnalyis – An interview with Avi Peled, M.D.
Back in July 2008 Mr Ian was on a rant. A rant about professional exclusivity in the realm of understanding and curing mental disorders – how one profession purports to beholden the knowledge and the cure for “les maladies de la tête“.
It was a passing storm long forgotten – until I recently came across a psychiatrist in Israel who has been raising awareness of his theories on a potential cure for mental disorder.
NeuroAnalysis is the brainchild of Avi Peled, M.D. and is the title of his 2008 book explaining all about understanding mental disorder as requiring a multi-speciality approach to science-based diagnostics and treatment.
Avi has a webpage: http://neuroanalysis.googlepages.com/home
On there he describes his theory on how mental disorder diagnostics can become scientifically based by producing profiles of brain function which more or less identify which neurons or networks are misbehaving by comparison to other optimally functioning networks. Such science would obviously render the subjective and often contentious DSM/ICD as a redundant artefact, consigned to the history museums of Bedlam.
Clinical Brain Profiling (CBP)
Psychiatric mental disorders can be formulated in terms of disturbances to optimal neural network dynamics in the brain. CBP reformulates psychiatric mental disorders as disorders of the optimal neural network organization of the brain. It is based on excellent scientific work by many neuroscientists and psychiatrists, never-the-less it still needs to stand the proof (or refute) of scrutinizing empirical appreciation.
I asked Avi if he’d be willing enough to give a brief explanation of his cause to us here at Mental Nurse and he was only too willing to oblige in the form of answering several questions over a course of emails.
Continue reading The Science and Science of Psychiatry?
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