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Friday, October 21. 2011

Turning normal variants into diagnoses

My colleague Dr. Allen Frances asks Should Temper Tantrums Be Made Into A DSM-5 Diagnosis?


Of course not. I regard the planned proliferation of "disorders" as a bit of a joke, but some people take it all very seriously. Internet Addiction Disorder? Tobacco Use Disorder? Sex Addiction?


In my view, the person is the issue, not the so-called diagnosis. Most of the time, I try to be of help to individual people, not diagnoses. There is a major division in Psychiatry today between those who treat diagnoses and those who treat people. Everybody has neurotic quirks.

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss at 14:18 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

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Here's a new one for you: Hyper-active Designation of Disorders Disorder.

JD
#1 JD on 2011-10-21 16:08 (Reply)
"'Minding-my-own-business' Disorder"? "'Can't-remember-my-Hippocratic-Oath' Disorder"? We can probably name quite a few of them in short order........
#1.1 Amazed on 2011-10-21 16:42 (Reply)
The nation is experiencing an epidemic of Protest Disorder.
#2 Pajak (Link) on 2011-10-21 16:33 (Reply)
LOL. No meds needed. All the "affected little person" need do is spend 15 minutes with my mother. It'll only take a couple of days for the feeling to come back into the little darling's cheeks after she presses them gently between her two hands and, gazing intently into their eyes, tells them in a calm, cool, collected voice why it is in their best interests to modify their own behavior. Sooner rather than later. And for the foreseeable future. It took me years after the first (okay, maybe second) such encounter to have another temper tantrum, half way through which my cheeks began to tingle and my mother's voice was heard in my head of its own volition why it was in my best interest to gather myself and modify my behavior. See, issue solved.
#3 Amazed on 2011-10-21 16:36 (Reply)
All I know is that my feelings should dictate how others think and feel; works for me.
#4 notquiteunBuckley on 2011-10-21 20:26 (Reply)
In my view, the person is the issue, not the so-called diagnosis. Most of the time, I try to be of help to individual people, not diagnoses. There is a major division in Psychiatry today between those who treat diagnoses and those who treat people.

In my undergrad years I worked a year as an aide at a psych hospital. A staff psychiatrist gave aides a three step guide in writing shift notes on patients, which also was useful in deciding how to respond to patients: 1) What did you (the aide) observe; 2) What are the dynamics behind what you observed? ; 3) What did you do to respond? What was going on with the patient- not what the diagnosis was.

After I left the hospital, I took an Abnormal Psych course, which was big on classifying. The course would have been useless in my former job as an aide.

She was an itsy-bitsy teeny weenie quite well labeled schizofrini. This just popped up as I was writing.
#5 Gringo on 2011-10-21 21:00 (Reply)

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