Mental health experts ask: Will anyone be normal?

(Reuters) – An updated edition of a mental health bible for doctors may include diagnoses for “disorders” such as toddler tantrums and binge eating, experts say, and could mean that soon no-one will be classed as normal.

Leading mental health experts gave a briefing on Tuesday to warn that a new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is being revised now for publication in 2013, could devalue the seriousness of mental illness and label almost everyone as having some kind of disorder.

Citing examples of new additions like “mild anxiety depression,” “psychosis risk syndrome,” and “temper dysregulation disorder,” they said many people previously seen as perfectly healthy could in future be told they are ill.

“It’s leaking into normality. It is shrinking the pool of what is normal to a puddle,” said Til Wykes of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London.

The DSM is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and contains descriptions, symptoms, and other criteria for diagnosing mental disorders. It is seen as the global diagnostic bible for the field of mental health medicine.

The criteria are designed to provide clear definitions for professionals who treat patients with mental disorders, and for researchers and pharmaceutical drug companies seeking to develop new ways of treating them.

Wykes and colleagues Felicity Callard, also of Kings’ Institute of Psychiatry, and Nick Craddock of Cardiff University’s department of psychological medicine and neurology, said many in the psychiatric community are worried that the further the guidelines are expanded, the more likely it will become that nobody will be classed as normal any more.

“Technically, with the classification of so many new disorders, we will all have disorders,” they said in a joint statement. “This may lead to the belief that many more of us ‘need’ drugs to treat our ‘conditions’ — (and) many of these drugs will have unpleasant or dangerous side effects.”

The scientists said “psychosis risk syndrome” diagnosis was particularly worrying, since it could falsely label young people who may only have a small risk of developing an illness.

“It’s a bit like telling 10 people with a common cold that they are “at risk for pneumonia syndrome” when only one is likely to get the disorder,” Wykes told the briefing.

The American Psychiatric Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The scientists gave examples from the previous revision to the DSM, which was called DSM 4 and included broader diagnoses and categories for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism and childhood bipolar disorders.

This, they said, had “contributed to three false epidemics” of these conditions, particularly in the United States.

“During the last decade, how many doctors were harangued by worried parents into giving drugs like Ritalin to children who didn’t really need it?,” their statement asked.

Millions of people across the world, many of them children, take ADHD drugs including Novartis’ Ritalin, which is known generically as methylphenidate, and similar drugs such as Shire Plc’s Adderall and Vyvanse. In the United States alone, sales of these drugs was about $4.8 billion in 2008.

Wykes and Callard published a comment in The Journal of Mental Health expressing their concern about the upcoming DSM revision and highlighting another 10 or more papers in the same journal from other scientists who were also worried. DSM 5 is due to be published in May 2013.

(Editing by Peter Graff)
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66Q4BJ20100727

wow.

I call this....
the economic stimulus package for financially disadvantaged shrinks.

Well I knew I had something wrong with me, and by 2013, I can be officially diagnosed with "Acute Singlosis Syndrom" aka A.S.S. Just hope I get special parking privaleges.

1. Marc pretty much summed it up.

2. In the interest of further hilarity at the expense of the psychiatric "profession," here's this GEM from the NEW, SHINY, IMPROVED, DSM 5, model year 2013.

"Factitious Disorder imposed on another (previously, factitious disorder by proxy):

To make this diagnosis, all 4 criteria must be met. Note that the perpetrator, not the victim, receives this diagnosis.

1. A pattern of falsification of physical or psychological signs or symptoms in another, associated with identified deception.

2. A pattern of presenting another (victim) to others as ill or impaired.

3. The behavior is evident even in the absence of obvious external rewards.

4. The behavior is not better accounted for by another mental disorder such as delusional belief system or acute psychosis."

Hey, I always suspected most people went into psychiatry because they secretly thought they were mentally ill and wanted someplace to hide-- but to see them voting it in, well, that's the kind of old-time honesty I would never have expected.

I don't know why anybody's surprised. Doctors WANT everybody to have a problem, then everybody has to pay and come see them, get told what's wrong with them and get told how they need to live the rest of their lives from somebody else, it's the psychiatrists' ultimate wet dream, to have everybody be even more screwed up than THEY are, even if everybody ISN'T nutso.

Not surprised. tsk, tsk, tsk

Marc™ wrote:

I call this....
the economic stimulus package for financially disadvantaged shrinks.

LOL - yup! The pharmaceutical companies will be very happy to hear this.

I'm not surprised. Everything is a "condition" now. If you're easily disgruntled, you have "anger management" issues. Your out of control teen isn't just a delinquent, he has "oppositional defiant disorder". You hear voices telling you to bludgeon the the mailman, you're a schizophrenic. Where does it end?

very interesting.

Every time I stare at the monitor screen for 2 hrs., I see spots.
Dear Lawd...I's got it!