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Thursday, May 30. 2013

The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry


A harsh critique of the "Psychiatry bible" (which is far from it): The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry



The most curious aspect of the status quo in psychiatry, though, is how a scientific-looking manual put out by a small organisation with no public accountability has come to be viewed with such reverence. Not for nothing is the DSM known as “the psychiatric bible”. Perhaps its bullet-pointed diagnoses do satisfy a religious need, the old existential ache for reassurance that “even the hairs of your head are all counted” and there’s no reason to be afraid.


Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Psychology, and Dr. Bliss at 17:54 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

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Evidently in some professions, being awarded a doctorate means that you must stop judging ideas on the basis of things like observation, measurement, and objective reasoning, but must instead evaluate them according to the opinions of whatever authorities have weighed in.

The attitude is prevalent in every profession for which general ed math is good enough. It is pandemic in education, for instance.
#1 John on 2013-05-30 18:29 (Reply)
The problem with psychiatry is that the experts to a man or woman, cannot ever examine a personality face to face without the results having been heavily Heisenberged by the fact of the interaction presence.

Every report is asterixed by the ''as examined on this day by a partnership of the patient and the doctor''.

This fraught subjectivity is is less important to the extent of the patient's objective record, leading to the ridiculous proposition that the less the doctor knows about the patient, the less bias informs the diagnosis.
#2 buddy larsen on 2013-05-31 12:26 (Reply)

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