A careful and important blog post about a new research initiative at the National Institute of Mental Health has become,...
Category: psychiatric diagnosis
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...
[Update: adds mention of Time magazine story.]
A team of researchers who analyzed genetic data on 33,000 people with mental illness and 28,000 controls discovered that the five most common mental illnesses--depression, autism, attention-deficit disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder--share...
[Update: adds mention of Time magazine story.]
A team of researchers who analyzed genetic data on 33,000 people with mental illness and 28,000 controls discovered that the five most common mental illnesses--depression, autism, attention-deficit disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder--share some of the same genetic abnormalities.
The finding, while it does not immediately lead to better treatment for any of these severe illnesses, does move researchers closer to understanding their causes. As Lauran Neergaard wrote for the AP:
"These disorders that we thought of as quite different may not have such sharp boundaries," said Dr. Jordan Smoller of Massachusetts General Hospital, one of the lead researchers for the international study appearing in The Lancet.
...
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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