Althouse: Psychiatrists exhibit cold feet syndrome.

May 11, 2012

Psychiatrists exhibit cold feet syndrome.

"In a rare step, doctors on a panel revising psychiatry’s influential diagnostic manual have backed away from two controversial proposals that would have expanded the number of people identified as having psychotic or depressive disorders."

19 comments:

edutcher said...: Anticipating the end of ZeroCare.; 5/11/12, 4:50 PM
Anonymous said...: Ah, the shifting sands of the vaunted D.S.M.; 5/11/12, 5:04 PM
ricpic said...: "...mixed anxiety depressive disorder..."

Otherwise known as life.; 5/11/12, 5:13 PM
crosspatch said...: Are they still eliminating Narcissistic Personality Disorder? That would seem to be exactly what a panel of narcissists would do.; 5/11/12, 5:19 PM
Richard Dolan said...: A 'rose by any other name ...' is evidently a principle applicable only to botany.; 5/11/12, 5:26 PM
n.n said...: They're concerned about Progressive Corruption syndrome. It occurs when a selective perception of reality cannot be supported. The effects are denigration of individual dignity and devaluation of human life. The only known treatment is confronting reality on its own terms. It is commonly caused by dreams of physical, material, and ego instant gratification, including the construction of psychotic or depressive disorders which may be, and often are, exploited to realize them.

I'm surprised they care at this late stage. They have already gone to great lengths to normalize behaviors which deviate from the natural order. I wonder why they hesitate to describe everything as subject to selective interpretation. The lawyers, in and out of government, would have an absolute field day with the new and saved revenue streams.; 5/11/12, 6:19 PM
chuck said...: I always thought psychiatrists were a bit strange. There needs to be a diagnostic category so that individuals with a desire to enter that profession can dealt with at an early stage.; 5/11/12, 6:26 PM
Michael K said...: A former partner of mine once explained why he thought psychiatrists were weird. An ice cream truck went through their neighborhood. The psychiatrist's kid wanted one. Instead of buying him an ice cream, or saying, "No," the psychiatrist spent ten minutes trying to explain to the screaming, tantrum throwing six year old what he couldn't have one.

Classic psychiatrist behavior.; 5/11/12, 7:51 PM
Penny said...: Until further notice, socks are contraindicated for cold feet syndrome in psychs.; 5/11/12, 7:57 PM
Penny said...: We can reconsider this when they prescribe psychotropic drugs to each other at the same rate they prescribe them to the general population.; 5/11/12, 8:02 PM
JAL said...: I'm with crosspatch.

??; 5/11/12, 9:28 PM
JAL said...: The things they are putting on hold? Meh. No big whoop. Not worth the paper they would be printed on.; 5/11/12, 9:29 PM
Henry said...: "Everyone" is too broad?; 5/11/12, 10:15 PM
Megaera said...: Crosspatch -- more to the point, eliminating Narcissistic Personality Disorder from the list now means that no medical professional will henceforth be obliged to opine that our peerless leader is now and has for many years been in the throes of that specific disorder. Poof, Hey Presto, embarrassing problem for future biographers airbrushed out of existence because it didn't suit the vanity of those who elected him to be charged with having saddled the country with an obvious head case.; 5/11/12, 11:57 PM
Anonymous said...: The story is a reminder that words mean something, they have distinced definitions. I wonder how DSM5 will define "marriage"?; 5/12/12, 1:49 AM
Methadras said...: I'd like to see this soft art and it's corresponding diagnostic manual removed from anything resembling law. We have been subjugated by these damn people for a long time and it's high time that it stops. Yes, there are legitimate medical conditions that affect the mind. Most of them is made up bullshit to keep these fuckers employed. The fact that they are allowed to testify for or against you in a court of law without a shred of a medical basis behind their 'opinions' is criminal. The idea that society has accepted their pronouncements for so long is even more criminal.; 5/12/12, 10:49 AM
a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...: Speaking of narcissism, Ann is exhibiting what Heinz Kohut I believe would call a grandiose transference in writing about the 'cold feet syndrome of psychiatrists.' That is where 'I, Ann in this case, have value because I am big and you are small.' For most psychiatrists who are not analysts, narcissism might be a descriptor that is part of a diagnosis but is not really an operational concept. Ann in her description of Obama and his 'faceless' experiences has an incisive and deft delineation of a narcissistic mirror transference. Such a situation occurs when 'I have value because I am able to bask in your reflected glory,' that glory here being in the other children who were teasing Corey or the Black Students Association.; 5/12/12, 5:31 PM
neomom said...: Actually, the changes to the autism definition and eliminating Aspergers could be devastating. I have a true Asperger's child and we are very anxious about it. Not because of the "state services" as in the article, but that it will no longer recognized by insurance.; 5/12/12, 7:55 PM
Anonymous said...: I've run out of energy for this issue. Firstly, most Americans do not realize that the DSM is a modification of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) manual.

The ICD is more conservative, more concise, more reliable -- and as it is tested in multiple countries -- less culturally driven.

Many countries modify it: the French, the Chinese, the Australians. But the group that completely munt it to the point where you get differences in prevelance rates from the same survey... are the Americans.

Since I am not American, my energy is going into lobbying the local learned societies so that we don't adopt DSM 5 at all.; 5/13/12, 7:04 AM