News The problem with the DSM V and how mental illness is diagnosed

[Gs172003]

Experts Warn There's a Huge Problem With How Mental Health Problems Are Diagnosed

Thoughts?

 

[Freida]

I think a lot of diagnosis are about how to get insurance companies to pay for treatment. Sad but true

 

[Gs172003]

I think a lot of diagnosis are about how to get insurance companies to pay for treatment. Sad but true

Agreed

 

[TruthSeeker]

If you pick apart DSM5 it has lots of problems, and probably always will. Criteria for diagnosis change, when people don't. This round of DSM5 may qualify you for X diagnosis, and DSM 6 may not, or you may have something else. I see it as society and people change, DSM changes it's criteria, and the insurance companies go along with it cause it's all they got. Diagnosis dictates what meds you can have and they'll pay for, how many sessions, and how often. I guess this is the insurance company's only way of being accountable.
What's real-therapists do what they have to do in therapy-insurance companies can't dictate day to day therapy since it is so individual.

 

[scout86]

I don't really think many "mental illnesses" exist in the same sense that measles or chicken pox exist. I think, in the end, they're going to find it's all some combination of genetics and life experience. And it all exists on a continuum. That's why, in the real world, a lot of it is subjective.

I totally agree, it's all about insurance companies and other agencies that control access to treatment. They require the therapist to put their client in a box, with a label. All the DSM is is the official list of allowable labels for boxes.

 

[Keming]

Any evaluation and assessment tool is going to fail at times. Flexibility should be built into it. Otherwise we risk returning to the era of "ptsd only happens to soldiers" regardless of symptoms being shared across diverse or even unique traumas. A taxonomy of disorders, each consisting of groupings of non-unique symptoms, is tempting in its simplicity.

"...in DSM-5 there is no way to identify what a 'normal' or 'appropriate' response to such a severe stressor would entail. "

This is troubling. I understand that many disciplines are reluctant to share headspace with interlopers, but even a cursory perusual of psychology will identify common and healthy/normal reactions or coping methods to stressors.

Mind ye, my psychiatrist seems convinced that psychiatric conditions are completely limited to defined patterns and never, ever have wider behavioral or functional implications. Perhaps psychiatrists as a group are just a wee bit stunned. I thought it was just mine...

The article's narrative voice is incredibly brisk. Almost hostile. I approve.