5-31-2013 National:
Ambitious "paradigm shift" fizzles
By now, you've seen the bad press about the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic codebook: Media pundits are labeling it "a manual run amok," so ambitious in scope that almost everyone qualifies for some mental illness or another.
But browsing through my crisp new copy, I find myself curiously dispassionate. Sure, it's even more bloated than the DSM-IV. But mainly, they just moved the chapters around and renamed a diagnosis here and there (dysthymia, for example, is now persistent depressive disorder). Even the typefaces will look familiar.
It's downright anticlimactic.
Remember when they first announced work on the new DSM? It was going to be a revolutionary "paradigm shift," aligning diagnoses with modern science. Disorders were going to be dimensional rather than categorical. All kinds of novel proposals were in play: Parental Alienation Syndrome. Paraphilic Coercive Disorder. Psychosis Risk Syndrome.
Then came the backlash. Prominent work group members walked out over the lack of science in the revision process. Petitions were launched. Special interest groups lobbied. ("Aspies," for example, were furious that psychiatry had bequeathed them an identity and were now taking it back.) The field trials fell apart. Even the National Institute of Mental Health announced it was breaking away from the DSM's diagnostic schema (although switching to its biology-worshipping Research Domain Criteria is like jumping from the frying pan to the fire). ..continued.. by Karen Franklin, IN the News
DSM-5: Forensic applications (Part II of II)
Courts cling to DSM as "bible"
As alluded to yesterday, in Part I, mental health professionals know not to take the DSM (or the ICD, for that matter) too seriously. It's just convenient fiction, or at best "useful constructs," mainly used to attain insurance reimbursement.
Only, there's this curious phenomenon: In the legal system, where the consequences of error can be grave, DSM diagnoses have taken on a mantra of grand truth. Increasingly, I find myself being asked during court testimony about some nit-picky little criterion or another (such as the six-month specifier for pedophilia) as if it is sacred gospel, rather than the arbitrary creation of some idiosyncratic back-room committee.
One bold colleague, when asked on the witness stand to confirm that the DSM is indeed "the bible of psychiatry," answers with a resounding "YES!" But, he adds, "Bible is Greek for 'book,' and the DSM's are a collection of books or chapters submitted by sundry subcommittees and approved or not based on politics. As with the Christian Bible, some known books (like the Book of Thomas) did not make the cut."
I don't recommend that tactic unless you are well grounded in theological studies. I myself cannot state under oath that the DSM is "the bible," when the attorney is really seeking to have me confirm its status as a learned treatise, that is, sufficiently authoritative that it should be relied upon in court. It may be the only game in town, but it's hardly known for its empirical fidelity. The text's assortment of vague generalities are not even referenced, so we don't know where they came from. If you are going to testify about a specific mental condition, such as delusional disorder, I recommend relying on empirical research from reliable sources that you can cite. ...continued... by Karen Franklin, In the News
No comments:
Post a Comment