{"id":26774,"date":"2014-07-11T08:46:20","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T13:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=26774"},"modified":"2014-07-11T08:46:20","modified_gmt":"2014-07-11T13:46:20","slug":"dsm-5-turns-everyday-anxiety-eccentricity-forgetting-and-bad-eating-habits-into-mental-disorders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/dsm-5-turns-everyday-anxiety-eccentricity-forgetting-and-bad-eating-habits-into-mental-disorders\/","title":{"rendered":"DSM-5 turns “everyday anxiety, eccentricity, forgetting and bad eating habits into mental disorders”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Helene Guldberg<\/a> reviews Saving Normal: An Insider\u2019s Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life<\/em> by Allen Frances.<\/p>\n

Frances\u2019 arguments about the dangers of inflating psychiatric conditions and psychiatric diagnosis are persuasive — maybe more so because he honestly admits to his own role in developing such an inflation. He is keenly aware of the risks of diagnostic inflation \u2018because of painful firsthand experience\u2019, he writes. \u2018Despite our efforts to tame excessive diagnostic exuberance, DSM-IV<\/em> had since been misused to blow up the diagnostic bubble\u2019. He is particularly concerned about the exponential increase in the diagnosis of psychiatric conditions in children, writing: \u2018We failed to predict or prevent three new false epidemics of mental disorder in children — autism, attention deficit, and childhood bipolar disorder. And we did nothing to contain the rampant diagnostic inflation that was already expanding the boundary of psychiatry far beyond its competence.\u2019<\/p>\n

Take Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which is \u2018spreading like wildfire\u2019. This diagnosis is applied so promiscuously that \u2018an amazing 10 per cent of kids now qualify\u2019, Frances writes. He points out that in the US, boys born in January are 70 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than boys born in December. The reason diagnosing ADHD is so problematic is that it essentially is a description of immaturity, including symptoms such as \u2018lack of impulse control\u2019, \u2018hyperactivity\u2019 or \u2018inattention\u2019. Boys born in January are the youngest in their school year group (in the US) and thus they are more likely to be immature; in the UK, the youngest children in a school classroom are born in August, and so here, August-born kids are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. We have medicalised immaturity.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Until 1980, the DSM<\/em>s were \u2018deservedly obscure little books that no one much cared about or read\u2019. DSM-I<\/em> (published in 1952) and DSM-II<\/em> (published in 1968) were \u2018unread, unloved and unused\u2019. Now, says Frances, this \u2018bible\u2019 of psychiatry \u2018determines all sorts of important things that have an enormous impact on people\u2019s lives — like who is considered well and who sick; what treatment is offered; who pays for it; who gets disability benefit; who is eligible for mental health, school vocational and other services; who gets to be hired for a job, can adopt a child, or pilot a plane, or qualifies for life insurance; whether a murderer is a criminal or mental patient; what should be the damages awarded in lawsuits; and much, much more\u2019.<\/p>\n

Today, as a result of various trends, including the impact of the DSM<\/em>s, many human behaviours, quirks, eccentricities and woes which in the past would have been seen as parts of the rich tapestry of life are now branded mental disorders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Helene Guldberg reviews Saving Normal: An Insider\u2019s Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life by Allen Frances. Frances\u2019 arguments about the dangers of inflating psychiatric conditions and psychiatric diagnosis are persuasive — maybe more so because he honestly admits to his own role in developing such an inflation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,66,28],"tags":[86,906,139],"class_list":["post-26774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-health-science","category-media","tag-criticism","tag-mentalhealth","tag-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6XQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26775,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26774\/revisions\/26775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}