Mental health experts ask: Will anyone be normal?

The APA started the DSM as a fundraiser. Now look where it's got us.

Mental health experts ask: Will anyone be normal?

By Kate Kelland

LONDON | Tue Jul 27, 2010 5:23pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - An updated edition of a mental health bible for doctors may include diagnoses for "disorders" such as toddler tantrums and binge eating, experts say, and could mean that soon no-one will be classed as normal.

Leading mental health experts gave a briefing on Tuesday to warn that a new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is being revised now for publication in 2013, could devalue the seriousness of mental illness and label almost everyone as having some kind of disorder.

Citing examples of new additions like "mild anxiety depression," "psychosis risk syndrome," and "temper dysregulation disorder," they said many people previously seen as perfectly healthy could in future be told they are ill.

"It's leaking into normality. It is shrinking the pool of what is normal to a puddle," said Til Wykes of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London.

The criteria are designed to provide clear definitions for professionals who treat patients with mental disorders, and for researchers and pharmaceutical drug companies seeking to develop new ways of treating them.

Wykes and colleagues Felicity Callard, also of Kings' Institute of Psychiatry, and Nick Craddock of Cardiff University's department of psychological medicine and neurology, said many in the psychiatric community are worried that the further the guidelines are expanded, the more likely it will become that nobody will be classed as normal any more.

"Technically, with the classification of so many new disorders, we will all have disorders," they said in a joint statement. "This may lead to the belief that many more of us 'need' drugs to treat our 'conditions' -- (and) many of these drugs will have unpleasant or dangerous side effects."

The scientists said "psychosis risk syndrome" diagnosis was particularly worrying, since it could falsely label young people who may only have a small risk of developing an illness.

"It's a bit like telling 10 people with a common cold that they are "at risk for pneumonia syndrome" when only one is likely to get the disorder," Wykes told the briefing.

The American Psychiatric Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The scientists gave examples from the previous revision to the DSM, which was called DSM 4 and included broader diagnoses and categories for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism and childhood bipolar disorders.

This, they said, had "contributed to three false epidemics" of these conditions, particularly in the United States.

"During the last decade, how many doctors were harangued by worried parents into giving drugs like Ritalin to children who didn't really need it?," their statement asked.

Millions of people across the world, many of them children, take ADHD drugs including Novartis' Ritalin, which is known generically as methylphenidate, and similar drugs such as Shire Plc's Adderall and Vyvanse. In the United States alone, sales of these drugs was about $4.8 billion in 2008.

Wykes and Callard published a comment in The Journal of Mental Health expressing their concern about the upcoming DSM revision and highlighting another 10 or more papers in the same journal from other scientists who were also worried. DSM 5 is due to be published in May 2013.

New Report Examines the Effect of Severe Mental Illness and Capital Punishment on Families

ACLU releases details on and links to a new report from NAMI which tells the stories of the effects of lack of proper treatment and inappropriate criminal conviction on the mentally ill and their families. Great - but we'd like them to go further....

"The report details several examples in which people who were clearly ill murdered someone and were found incompetent. It also tells the stories of those who were still tried, convicted and eventually executed, despite their mental illness.

For example, Larry Robison was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. His parents checked him into a few facilities. Each time he was about to be released, his parents asked the physicians to retain him. One psychiatrist stated that Robison needed long-term care, but when the hospital learned that Robison was not covered by insurance, his parents said the hospital "could not wait to get him out of there." His parents were told he could not get help because he was not violent, but if he became violent, he would be placed in a mental hospital.

Robison began to self-medicate and was admitted to a rehabilitation center for his drug use, but was not treated for schizophrenia. Robison was arrested for the murder of five people just four years after his first diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. His first violent act was murder. Robison was executed, without ever receiving the treatment he needed."

Link

Pharmaceuticals Anonymous comments:
We wish that the mentally ill would get justice, but we know that won't happen without proper diagnosis and treatment. Schizophrenia can be reversed when proper examination for its 29 medical causes is done, and other disorders that cause antisocial and criminal tendencies can similarly be screened and treated, generally with supplements and appropriate foods. We wish NAMI had led the way on this, but they have made many deals with Big Pharma so it is unlikely that proper screening and diagnosis will be allowed on their agenda. Link
Until proper diagnosis and right treatment are common, suffering will continue, and enforced, often damaging drugging which curtails cognitive and personal freedoms will continue.
See PDF.

Link - Wikipedia on orthomolecular/nutritional treatment of mental illness

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