jesse morrison, you wouldn’t happen to frequent this site, would you?
{fixed code. --Gaudere}
[Edited by Gaudere on 10-25-2001 at 03:22 PM]
Someone fix my code-please?
Cite?
It’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual. I’ve been in therapy almost constantly since 3rd grade. I’m now 27. I have never had a therapist or psychiatrist (therapists are for the standard couch experience. Psychiatrists prescribe the necessary pills.) state that view of the DSM. Many have said that it needs further updating and that some improvements could be made. However, they held that the DSM is a very useful tool.
Originally posted by DocCathode
Many have said that it needs further updating and that some improvements could be made. However, they held that the DSM is a very useful tool.
I do not know when the first DSM was written, or when the last one was written, but my sociology teacher and part time psychotherapist said that it had increased, and that if this rate of increase continues, every one in the USA will be able to get diagnosed as being mentally ill.
My sociology teacher admits that she is part of this scam, but she said she needed her money from the insurance companies, and the only way she could get it was to flip thru the DSM until she found a suitable diagnosis that she could give her patients.
Are you a private pay patient?
jesse
This practice is solely the result of the insurance industry refusing to pay for therapy given to people without an accompanying diagnosis. The DSM predates this use of it by the insurance industry. You have put the cart before the horse, my friend.
Originally posted by KellyM
This practice is solely the result of the insurance industry refusing to pay for therapy given to people without an accompanying diagnosis. The DSM predates this use of it by the insurance industry. You have put the cart before the horse, my friend.
I stand corrected, but why is the DSM getting thicker? Is this due to more detail being given in the diagnosis, or is there more classifications of mental illnesses. For instance, how did ADHD and the Paraphilias get in the DSM?
Who determines if something is a mental illness?
jesse
Well, DSMV-II, published in 1968 added a condition called “hyperkinetic reaction of childhood”. In 1980, the name was changed to ADD and had 2 subgroups, with hyperactivity and without hyperactivity. A more detailed history is here.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/adhd/diagnostic.html
Fetishes have been in the DSM since the beginning, as have been crossdressing, voyerism and pedophilia, I believe. I don’t think they were put together as “paraphilias” until DSMV-IV.
As for who determines, it’s the American Psychiatric Association that puts out the DSM. The DSM doesn’t just include what you might think of as “mental illness”. It deals with all disorders and conditions a psychiatrist might be faced with. Substance abuse, for example, is also included in the DSM.
I would say too, if you are saying that mental illness dianosis has gone up, that it could be because we are starting to learn more and understand more about the way they function, and that it is becoming LESS of a stigma-although not as much as it should.
Many mental illnesses are the result of a chemical imbalance. ADHD and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, both of which I have, are some examples of such.
Reading this debate has stirred the very essence of my soul. Realize that I have considered this response carefully, and truly believe that it will enrich this thread:
jesse, would you please use the “quote” function instead of pasting in quotes by hand? My eyes burn trying to read un-boldfaced, un-indented type. My confidence in the power of vBulletin to produce easily readable threads has been undermined!
Because psychiatrists are constantly expanding their knowledge of mental illness.
Both. More information is provided, and each revision adds more categories, usually to represent refinements in the existing categories. The committee that revises the DSM will split a category when it appears that there are disparate conditions which, under the existing categories, are lumped together into a single category. They will also eliminate a category when that category does not seem to relate well to the actual clinical experiences of psychiatrists (most commonly, merging two subcategories where clinicians do not find the differentiation between the two subcategories useful).
Individual mental health practictioners. The DSM does not define mental illness. It categorizes it. The DSM is merely a description of a language that psychiatrists use to talk about mental illness. As psychiatrists’ understanding of mental illness changes, so does the language used to speak about it.
Lay people routinely misuse the DSM. You cannot read through the DSM, find the description that “fits you best”, and declare that you have a mental illness because of that. That’s putting the cart before the horse. No responsible practitioner would use the DSM in this way. Rather, a psychiatrist, after determining that a patient is mentally ill (that is, that the patient has a problem not caused by a medical condition which is causing some impairment within his or her life), can then use the DSM to identify which recognized category of mental illness best describes the patient’s specific conditions, solely for the purpose of putting a label on that patient’s particular problem. There are “catchall” categories (e.g. “Psychotic Disorder NOS”, or “not otherwise specified”) in the DSM for people whose mental illness is too strange or too novel to fit within the existing categories. (Most new categories arise as the “NOS” categories get refined.) Having a label makes it easier for the psychiatrist to research approaches that other psychiatrists have tried for similiar conditions, and evaluate potential approaches for treatment.
I wrote a much better response than this earlier, but I seem to have lost it instead of posting it. Oh well.