http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/blog/inpractice/2013/05/mental_illness_still_hurts_no.html
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... For decades, every medical student purchased one in a series of revisions of the "DSM." Mine was DSM III, which--even if I wanted to lie about my age--places me firmly in the 1980s. The book contains descriptions of dozens of disorders, from schizophrenia to borderline personality to binge eating disorder, each with a menu-style selection of symptoms.
<snipped out criteria table from DSM-IV on depression>
Though this system of diagnosis may seem primitive, it's been felt a superior alternative to no system and its proponents argue that it at least gives clinicians and researchers a common vocabulary and insurance companies a basis for coverage of psychiatric illness.
The DSM's opponents have countered that this system is too subjective, not scientifically valid, and subject to abuse. That abuse can come in the form of mislabeling people as mentally ill (homosexuality appeared in the DSM until 1973) or labeling people in such a way that they are more likely to be prescribed medications. If you have observed that more kids seem now to be autistic, or bipolar--some of that increase is simply from increased diagnosis, guided by the inclusion of these entities in the DSM.
DSM 5 (they've changed over from Roman numerals) is about to be released amid enormous controversy. Many critics, including some psychiatric insiders, feel that the DSM 5 is an even less reliable and more potentially harmful tool than its predecessors. In fact, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has just announced that it will no longer fund research based on the DSM.
This announcement is nothing short of a cataclysm in mental health. Imagine that you have a child who's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is on medication that seems to be working somewhat but which also causes weight gain and puts him or her at risk for suicide. You now have the most powerful scientific organization dealing with mental health (NIMH) at odds with the most powerful psychiatric organization (APA) about whether that diagnosis is valid.
Though the NIMH's bold move will likely be positive in the long run, in the short run it will cause great anguish and confusion for patients and their families, as well as complicating and stalling research funding and insurance coverage for mental illness.
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