Drs. work on DSM, but note drugs were treatment of choice.I think we are fallout

A free-lance writer has addressed the issues of psychiatric diagnoses and the new diagnostic manual (DSM version 4) to describe problems. At one point, he  quotes a Prof. Shorter who notes that there has been a problem with the implication that people have been told to use medications for many issues (I paraphrase).

http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/feature/psychiatry-diagnosis-dsm-diagnostic-and-statistical-manual-of-mental-disorders-edward-shorter/

I suggest that we are experiencing the fallout of this "give them drugs" attitude and as the drs. go on with their manual, little addresses the issues that the drug providing drs. have left behind.

Yeah fallout is right, if was a war they would call it "collateral damage" .

Quote;

The American Psychiatric Association’s DSM guides treatment decisions in the U.S., Canada and other countries. Often a DSM diagnosis is required by an insurer before payments will be made for treatment.

(flawed by insurance companies)

Quote:

The problem of “diagnostic creep,” in which normal human emotions are classified as pathology is also a valid concern, he says. “Being sad, angry, afraid or joyous − that is part of the normal fabric of human experience. How do we draw a line when sadness becomes depression, when joy becomes mania, when fear becomes paranoia?”

(this is a really important question, I think that part of the problem is socialogical, we need to treat the whole person[entire nation], holistic and not just giving antipsychotics,benzos etc..)

We need more independent research and money put into mental illness. Its connected to so many other problems.

thanks hanna

HI What2do,

Yup. Sometimes I feel like collateral damage - injured by friendly fire. Now there is an oxymoron for you.

Agree about diagnostic creep. I have yet to meet anyone who has walked into a psychiatrist's office and walked out having been told there was nothing wrong with them. It must be the only dr. group where the diagnosis comes from the "subjective" descriptions of symptoms. Try giving someone insulin before doing a blood test, for a perspective on how strange the way psychiatry works.

I am thinking of writing to the author. He does not work just on the DSM, but on many health-related issues. Perhaps he would be interested in seeing what has happened to all those people who have been given drugs and writing about our issue.