Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Upheaval In Psychiatry: US National Institute Of Mental Health Abandons Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

Posted by Milton Recht:

From NewScientist, Mental Health, "Psychiatry divided as mental health 'bible' denounced" by Andy Coghlan and Sara Reardon:
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 publication of the fifth revision of the manual, called DSM-5.

On 29 April, Thomas Insel, director of the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), advocated a major shift away from categorising diseases such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia according to a person's symptoms. Instead, Insel wants mental disorders to be diagnosed more objectively using genetics, brain scans that show abnormal patterns of activity and cognitive testing.

This would mean abandoning the manual published by the American Psychiatric Association that has been the mainstay of psychiatric research for 60 years.

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