Last week, I chastised New Scientist for describing...
Category: DSM-5
Last week, I chastised New Scientist for describing a blog post from the National Institute of Mental Health as "a bombshell."
Andy Coughlan and Sara Reardon wrote the following lede off of the post, written by the NIMH director, Thomas Insel:
The world's biggest mental health research institute is abandoning the new version of psychiatry's "bible" – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, questioning its validity and stating that "patients with mental...
A careful and important blog post about a new research initiative at the National Institute of Mental Health has become,...
A careful and important blog post about a new research initiative at the National Institute of Mental Health has become, in the hands of New Scientist, a "bombshell" that "denounced" the forthcoming update of the psychiatric diagnostic manual.
This histrionic description seems out of character for New Scientist, which is ordinarily a very good science magazine. Here's the lede:
The world's biggest mental health research institute is abandoning the new version of psychiatry's "bible" – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, questioning its validity and stating that "patients with mental disorders deserve better." This bombshell comes just weeks before the...
Benedict Carey at The New York Times has done a nice job threading his way through the complexities and controversies surrounding the approval of the new edition of the psychiatrists' diagnostic manual, known as the DSM-5...
Benedict Carey at The New York Times has done a nice job threading his way through the complexities and controversies surrounding the approval of the new edition of the psychiatrists' diagnostic manual, known as the DSM-5. In a story headlined "A Tense Compromise on Defining Disorders," he focuses on three revisions that caused particular concern among both professionals and activists. Those revisions concerned the diagnosis of depression, autism, and pediatric bipolar disorder.
He explains the changes and the significance of those changes. In each case, the revisions could mean that some people diagnosed with those disorders by the criteria in DSM-4 will no longer have them when evaluated by the criteria in the DSM-5. And, he notes, the reverse is...
On his director's blog, Thomas R. Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, has listed what, in his view, were the top 10 advances in mental health and neuroscience in 2012. It's an interesting list not only because of what it includes, but because Insel shares...
On his director's blog, Thomas R. Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, has listed what, in his view, were the top 10 advances in mental health and neuroscience in 2012. It's an interesting list not only because of what it includes, but because Insel shares his interpretations and some brief ruminations on the findings, along with his suggestions of what is likely to continue to be important in the coming years.
Manipulating the epigenome to treat brain disorders is one intriguing development that I missed. I also liked his description of 2012 as "the year of genomic weirdness," which apparently is some sort of technical term. Under "weird," he includes the notion that "cancer might be a useful model for understanding autism or schizophrenia," that women can carry their offspring's cells in their brains, and that "microDNA segments could be transmitted independently of chromosomes...
The authors of an article on the website of Scientific American Mind are entitled to their opinion on whether or not children can get bipolar disorder. They are not entitled to dress up their...
The authors of an article on the website of Scientific American Mind are entitled to their opinion on whether or not children can get bipolar disorder. They are not entitled to dress up their opinion as reporting.
The article, by Scott O. Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz, is headlined "Do Kids Get Bipolar Disorder?" That promises a broad examination of the topic. But that's not what we get.
The authors begin their story with a boy with behavior problems. But he's a fabrication. The story begins: "Imagine an eight-year old boy whom we will call Eric..." Imagination is a beautiful thing, but we should be wary of imagining characters in nonfiction. (Although it's a lot easier than finding real kids.)
They then recite statistics showing that the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children has risen sharply in...
The new diagnostic manual being prepared...
The new diagnostic manual being prepared by the American Psychiatric Association, known as the DSM-5, has been the subject of enormous controversy. See this chronicle of the controversy from Psychology Today a couple of years ago, and this from The Huffington Post just a few weeks ago. A Google search will bury you in stories.
So the American Psychiatric Association, which is preparing the manual for publication in May, 2013, should be accustomed to criticism. And isn't that the...
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