NIMH abandons the DSM-V

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There's been considerable focus on etiology already. I mean that in the sense that it's not as if NIMH is producing something new.

The argument about how there are no medical tests for mental illness is an unfortunately common one, and dismisses much of the actual science that has gone into identifying and describing mental illness.

This move is more political than scientific.

That means psychiatrists would actually have to pay attention to facts.

ruveyn

NIMH rejects DSM and clinical psychology in favor of neuroscience, biology, and scientific research? Is that what this means?

Mild autism fits me like a glove and no amount of wishful thinking or altered reasoning or anything else is going to change that.

But...

Maybe I'm just not understanding, not pulling the sense out of the flood of details (autism, you know...). But words like "symptom-based approach"...

...the tone of this statement...

...I believe that's a wild and flying hope I feel kindling within me. Right now I feel like letting out a happy yell, flapping in circles in the living room, maybe inviting WrongPlanet over for a weenie roast in my back yard...

Better squelch that before I act all autistic, and then get bitterly disappointed again.

Don't forget the Stim Soda and the Telsa fries. If we're having a WrongPlanet party your way, are you sure you have a big enough yard?

Nowhere near. I think an acre might just about be enough room for the bonfire and the buffet. But it's a pretty suburban/rural county. Maybe we could take it over for a weekend, give the NTs a taste of the majority being on the other foot...

So for those of you who drink-- how exactly do I mix Shutdown Shots...

We'll set of Rockin' Rockets and let the older kids play with Spinning Sparklers...

I'm sure the hypothetical celebration is premature, but this really could be the beginning of a good thing.

Now if only this could be gotten to focus on actual best practices for optimizing the function of the individual.

Maybe those who refuse to accept human neurological diversity could be consigned to treatment by psychologists???

Here the nail has been headed! A customer centered business!

To compare it with other public service business, like The Police, the police let people go. Guilty and dangerous, not for a long while, but few see the public as a pool of nut cases waiting to be processed.

Police do not make more money labeling the public as dangerous, if so, Psychopaths and CEOs do have the same traits, and not caring about the views of others, also fits the Police.

Several people have told me, "The Judge said come back Monday, tell me you have enlisted in the service, or I am going to give you five years in jail."

Needed treatment where needed, being found Not Guilty on all other charges.

Criminal weird is much worse than Social Weird, but criminals are not told they are less than human, and have to be kept on drugs for life.

Ice Water Baths, Electro shock, Thorizine, would seem more jail convict suited, but we have laws about that.

The standards for treating Mental Differance, would not last for a day on Death Row. The Courts would shut that down.

Convicted of Murder beyond a reasonable doubt, is protected from cruel and unusable treatment, but accused of possible mild Autism, has no protection.

People do appeal, get their conviction thrown out, get freed or a new trial, but not in The Mental Health System, Guilty by Secret notes, now and forever, with no right to even see the evidence, challenge it, or take it to a higher Court.

In the Mental Health System people are held to be guilty of things that cannot be proven to exist. They may as well be claiming Demonic Possession.

They have no standards of evidence. I think that is needed, for anything that deprives a person of the Property of a Good Name.

A Legal and Medical Standard is needed, and I think Psychobabble should be given ice water and Thorizine ennamas with electro shock until they produce one.

Here the nail has been headed! A customer centered business!

To compare it with other public service business, like The Police, the police let people go. Guilty and dangerous, not for a long while, but few see the public as a pool of nut cases waiting to be processed.

Police do not make more money labeling the public as dangerous, if so, Psychopaths and CEOs do have the same traits, and not caring about the views of others, also fits the Police.

Several people have told me, "The Judge said come back Monday, tell me you have enlisted in the service, or I am going to give you five years in jail."

Needed treatment where needed, being found Not Guilty on all other charges.

Criminal weird is much worse than Social Weird, but criminals are not told they are less than human, and have to be kept on drugs for life.

Ice Water Baths, Electro shock, Thorizine, would seem more jail convict suited, but we have laws about that.

The standards for treating Mental Differance, would not last for a day on Death Row. The Courts would shut that down.

Convicted of Murder beyond a reasonable doubt, is protected from cruel and unusable treatment, but accused of possible mild Autism, has no protection.

People do appeal, get their conviction thrown out, get freed or a new trial, but not in The Mental Health System, Guilty by Secret notes, now and forever, with no right to even see the evidence, challenge it, or take it to a higher Court.

In the Mental Health System people are held to be guilty of things that cannot be proven to exist. They may as well be claiming Demonic Possession.

They have no standards of evidence. I think that is needed, for anything that deprives a person of the Property of a Good Name.

A Legal and Medical Standard is needed, and I think Psychobabble should be given ice water and Thorizine ennamas with electro shock until they produce one.

Here is another link on this topic

http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/07/a ... andons-it/

I'm not sure I understand all this stuff, but it seems like NIMH wants to put it's financial resources into identifying the cause of disorders and perhaps eliminating them. As opposed to DSM which I think is more about treating existing and continuing disorders. The timing does seem suspicious though . . . NIMH knows the importance of the launch to DSM.

I believe the timing was quite intentional. If the post itself was'nt enough, the round of interviews over the following week got the point accross.

Do you have some links to some interviews? I'd be most interesting in reading/hearing them if they're available for free online. For better or worse, I'm a bit skeptical. You see, I heard a piece today on Boston Public Radio -- Audio Link Here§ -- with a representative of NIMH and the incoming APA president. The pair seemed downright chummy, I think even referring to each other by first name. The representative of NIMH also specifically said that the DSM was the best diagnostic method we've got, and it will remain so for the "foreseeable future." Weirdly, the APA representative used exactly the same phrase, for what that is worth.

I'm guessing if there's a change coming, it is not going to be for quite a while. Like at least a decade or so at the clinical level. Or at any rate, that was my takeaway from listening to this. But I'd be very interested in learning I'm wrong with my tentative conclusion.

§ - No clue how long that link will be valid for, however. I'm guessing a week or two from the time of this post, at the most.

Mikassyna, thanks for posting the link to that article. Here are two related pieces.

"Psychiatry’s Guide Is Out of Touch With Science, Experts Say."
By P. Belluck and B. Carey
May 6, 2013
" Just weeks before the long-awaited publication of a new edition of the so-called bible of mental disorders, the federal government’s most prominent psychiatric expert has said the book suffers from a scientific 'lack of validity.'
The expert, Dr. Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said in an interview Monday that his goal was to reshape the direction of psychiatric research to focus on biology, genetics and neuroscience so that scientists can define disorders by their causes, rather than their symptoms...."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/healt ... s-say.html

"Why Is Psychiatry's New Manual So Much Like The Old One?"
by Jon Hamilton
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/05 ... he-old-one


Some older articles that may be of interest.

Kawa, S., & Giordano, J. (2012). A brief historicity of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Issues and implications for the future of psychiatric canon and practice. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 2012, 7:2; doi:10.1186/1747-5341-7-2 .
http://www.peh-med.com/content/7/1/2/abstract

Nesse, R. M., & Stein, D. J. (2012). Towards a genuinely medical model for psychiatric nosology. BMC Medicine 2012, 10:5; doi:10.1186/1741-7015-10-5 .
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/10/5/abstract

Patil, T., & Giordano, J. (2010). On the ontological assumptions of the medical model of psychiatry: philosophical considerations and pragmatic tasks. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 2010, 5:3; doi:10.1186/1747-5341-5-3 .
http://www.peh-med.com/content/5/1/3/abstract

Phillips, J., et al. (2012). The six most essential questions in psychiatric diagnosis: a pluralogue part 1: conceptual and definitional issues in psychiatric diagnosis. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 2012, 7:3; doi:10.1186/1747-5341-7-3 .
http://www.peh-med.com/content/7/1/3/abstract


Part 1. "The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why?"
by Marcia Angell
June 23, 2011
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... lness-why/
Part 2. "The Illusions of Psychiatry"
by Marcia Angell
July 14, 2011
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... sychiatry/

One thing that bothers me about Autism and Aspergers is that there can apparently be a number of different causes. I've wondered if there is a possibility that you might have two entirely different conditions that are both called Autism merely because of a similarity in how they present when being diagnosed.

I agree. A full change in DSM to the validity of physicalism would render the diagnosis unusable to me because it would not any longer describe me.

DSM-5 does not support the biomedical model (the base for genetical research, pharmacological research and neuroscientifical research) as much as it was expected to do, and this looks like the main reason for NIMHs decision. DSM-5 started out with a goal to be on count with the biomedical model; but the dimensional approach to this failed in gaining such a goal.