DSM-5 rejects call for urgent reconsideration of new “Somatic Symptom Disorder” category

DSM-5 rejects call from lead psychiatrist for DSM-IV Task Force for urgent reconsideration of new “Somatic Symptom Disorder” category 

Post #219 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-2C0

Today, Allen Frances, M.D., publishes a follow-up to our December 8 commentary in which we set out the implications for all chronic illness patient populations of misdiagnosis with “Somatic Symptom Disorder (SSD)” or misapplication of an additional diagnosis of “SSD.”

In the second of three commentaries, Dr Frances reports on the outcome of his representations to the DSM-5 Somatic Symptom Disorder Work Group, key APA Board of Trustees office holders and DSM-5’s Task Force chair and vice-chair, for urgent reconsideration of this new “catch-all” mental health disorder.

The texts for DSM-5 are expected to be finalized for the publishers by the end of this month.

Dr Frances’ first commentary on SSD is approaching 20,000 views and has received over 300 comments on Psychology Today, alone. It is also published at Huffington Post and at Education Update and widely circulated on other platforms.

There has been an overwhelming response to our concerns with comments pouring in from patients with diverse chronic illnesses and medical conditions including Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Interstitial Cystitis, Behcet’s disease, Endometriosis, Lupus, Hashimotos thyroid disorder, Hughes Syndrome, Pancreatitis and Chronic Lyme disease –patients whose symptoms had been dismissed for years before finally receiving a diagnosis or who are still struggling to obtain a diagnosis, many of whom had been mislabelled with a somatoform disorder.

We’ve also received many emails from patients and international patient organizations.

Please circulate this follow-up commentary. I am particularly keen to reach platforms for patients with common chronic diseases and conditions – cancer, heart disease, diabetes, COPD, MS, RA, chronic pain; also Lyme disease, chemical injury and rare diseases, IBS and Fibromyalgia, ME and CFS.

Allen Frances, M.D., was chair of the DSM-IV Task Force and of the department of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC. He is currently professor emeritus at Duke.

Psychology Today

DSM5 in Distress

The DSM’s impact on mental health practice and research
by Allen Frances, M.D.

Published on January 16, 2013 by Allen J. Frances, M.D., in DSM5 in Distress

Bad News: DSM 5 Refuses To Correct Somatic Symptom Disorder
Medical Illness Will Be Mislabeled Mental Disorder

“Many of you will have read a previous blog prepared by Suzy Chapman and me that contained alarming information about the new DSM 5 diagnosis ‘Somatic Symptom Disorder.’

“SSD is defined so over inclusively by DSM 5 that it will mislabel 1 in 6 people with cancer and heart disease; 1 in 4 with irritable bowel and fibromyalgia; and 1 in 14 who are not even medically ill.

“I hoped to be able to influence the DSM 5 work group to correct this in 2 ways: 1) by suggesting improvements in the wording of the SSD criteria set that would reduce mislabeling; and 2) by letting them know how much opposition they would face from concerned professionals and an outraged public if DSM 5 failed to slam on the brakes while there was still time…”

Read on here:

Bad News: DSM 5 Refuses To Correct Somatic Symptom Disorder
Medical Illness Will Be Mislabeled Mental Disorder

The most recent proposals for new category “J 00 Somatic Symptom Disorder”

IASP and the Classification of Pain in ICD-11  Prof. Dr. Winfried Rief, University of Marburg, Germany

Slide 9

Ed: Note that the requirement for “at least two from the B type criteria” was reduced to “at least one from the B type criteria” for the third iteration of draft proposals. This lowering of the threshold is presumably in order to accommodate the merging of the previously proposed “Simple Somatic Symptom Disorder” category into the “Complex Somatic Symptom Disorder” category, a conflation now proposed to be renamed to “Somatic Symptom Disorder,” also the disorder section name. A revised “Rationale/Validity” PDF document was not issued for the third and final draft. A brief, revised “Rationale” text was published on a Tab Page for the Somatic Symptom Disorder proposal and criteria but is no longer accessible.

Proposals, criteria and rationales, as posted for the third draft in May 2012, were removed from the DSM-5 Development website on November 15, 2012 and placed behind a non public log in. Criteria as they had stood for the third draft can no longer be viewed but are set out on Slide 9 in this presentation, which note, does not include three, optional Severity Specifiers that were included with the third draft criteria.

Related material

Mislabeling Medical Illness As Mental Disorder: The Eleventh DSM-5 Mistake, Psychology Today, DSM5 in Distress, Allen Frances, MD, December 8, 2012

Somatic Symptom Disorder could capture millions more under mental health diagnosis, Suzy Chapman

Submission to Somatic Symptom Disorder Work Group in response to third draft proposals, Suzy Chapman

Additional commentary

Oak Park Behavioral Medicine, Mind Your Body blog

Moving in the Wrong Direction

Dr Tiffany Taft, Ph.D., Northwestern University, December 13, 2012

IBS Impact IBS Impact blog

Proposed DSM-5 Criteria May Unfairly Label Physical Conditions as Psychological Disorders

One Last Chance For APA To Make DSM 5 Safer: Allen Frances, M.D.

One Last Chance For APA To Make DSM 5 Safer: Allen Frances, M.D.

Post #215 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-2Ae

Psychology Today Blogs | DSM5 in Distress | Allen Frances, M.D.

One Last Chance For APA To Make DSM 5 Safer

Other wise there will likely be a buyer’s revolt.

Allen J. Frances, M.D. | December, 16 2012

Two weeks ago the Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association made the serious mistake of approving and rushing to press a DSM 5 that has many unsafe and untested suggestions.

The reaction has been unexpectedly heated: dozens of extremely negative news stories, many highly critical blogs, and a number of calls for a DSM 5 boycott in the US, England, France, Australia, Spain, and Italy…

Round up of recent DSM-5 media

The Daily Beast

The DSM’s Controversial Update

December 9, 2012

New Scientist

Magazine issue 2895.

Target faulty brain circuits to treat mental illness

Peter Aldhous | December 12, 2012

“Some critics argue that it’s time to rip up the manual and start again – with wider input. In the coming weeks, organisers of a petition to reform DSM-5 backed by 14,000 mental health professionals plan to launch an online forum to debate a new diagnostic system…”

Related material

Mislabeling Medical Illness As Mental Disorder  Allen J Frances MD, December 9, 2012

Somatic Symptom Disorder could capture millions more under mental health diagnosis 

Submission to Somatic Symptom Disorder Work Group in response to third draft proposals

Mislabeling Medical Illness As Mental Disorder: The Eleventh DSM 5 Mistake: Allen Frances, MD

Mislabeling Medical Illness As Mental Disorder: The eleventh DSM 5 mistake needs an eleventh hour correction by Allen Frances, MD

Post #214 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-2zk

Update: Responses to Psychology Today commentary

Huffington Post
Huff Po Science

Allen Frances, Professor Emeritus, Duke University; Chair, Task Force for DSM-IV

Mislabeling Medical Illness As Mental Disorder: The Eleventh DSM-5 Mistake

Allen Frances MD | December 12, 2012

http://www.madinamerica.com/

Featured Blogs

Boycott The DSM-5: Anachronistic Before Its Time

Jack Carney, DSW | December 10, 2012

When plans for the DSM-5 were first announced about ten years ago, most folks’ reaction was “Why?”. Many of us asked that same question several times as the publication date for the new tome kept on getting pushed back. Finally, the curtain enshrouding the DSM-5 Task Force and its several committees began to part and proposed revisions/additions began to appear on its website. To our dismay, we found our question answered…

Beyond Meds

DSM‘s Somatoform Disorders: millions more might be diagnosed (those with withdrawal syndrome are high risk for such misdiagnosis)

Monica Cassani | December 10, 2012

1 Boring Old Man

1 Boring Old Man | December 09, 2012

Danger! Danger!…

Today, Allen Frances, MD, who chaired the Task Force for DSM-IV, publishes his considerable concern for potential harm to all illness groups if DSM-5 Somatic Symptom Disorder (SSD) criteria go ahead in their current form.

Psychology Today blogs

DSM5 in Distress

The DSM’s impact on mental health practice and research

Allen Frances, M.D., was chair of the DSM-IV Task Force and is currently professor emeritus at Duke.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201212/mislabeling-medical-illness-mental-disorder

Mislabeling Medical Illness As Mental Disorder

The eleventh DSM 5 mistake needs an eleventh hour correction.

Allen J Frances MD | December 9, 2012

Allen Frances said, “…Adding to the woes of the medically ill could be one of the biggest problems caused by DSM 5. It will do this in two ways: 1) by encouraging a quick jump to the erroneous conclusion that someone’s physical symptoms are ‘all in the head’; and 2) by mislabeling as mental disorders what are really just the normal emotional reactions that people understandably have in response to a medical illness…”

Suzy Chapman said, “…the requirement of ‘medically unexplained’ symptoms is replaced by much looser and more subjective ‘excessive thoughts, behaviors and feelings’ and the clinician’s perception of “dysfunctional illness belief’ or ‘excessive preoccupation’ with the bodily symptom.

“That, and a duration of at least six months, is all that is required to tick the box for a bolt-on diagnosis of a mental health disorder – Colorectal cancer + SSD; Angina + SSD; Type 2 diabetes + SSD; IBS + SSD…”

Read full commentary here on Psychology Today

All patient groups stand to be hurt by this new DSM-5 disorder

In the DSM-5 field trials, one in six patients with serious diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes met the criteria for an additional diagnosis of “Somatic Symptom Disorder”.  Over 25% of the “functional somatic” field trial study group (irritable bowel and chronic widespread pain patients) were coded with ‘SSD’.

The new SSD category (which would replace four categories under the DSM-IV Somatoform Disorders) de-emphazises “medically unexplained symptoms” as the defining feature of this disorder group.

Instead, focus shifts to the subjective perceptions of the patient’s “excessive thoughts, behaviors and feelings” about the seriousness of distressing and persistent bodily symptoms, which may or may not accompany diagnosed general medical conditions, and the extent to which “illness preoccupation” is perceived to have come to “dominate” or “subsume” the patient’s life.

Families with children with chronic medical illness will also be vulnerable, as the proposals, as they stood at the third draft, allow for assigning a diagnosis of “SSD” to parents perceived as being “over-involved” in their child’s illness and symptomatology or encouraging the maintenance of “sick role behavior.”

The elderly, with higher rates of cancer, heart disease and age-onset diabetes, will also be vulnerable – all three diseases are cited by the SSD Work Group as candidates for an additional diagnosis of a mental health disorder + a diagnosed illness – if the patient is considered to also meet the criteria for ‘SSD’.

The DSM-5 manual texts have not yet been finalized for the publishers: it’s not too late to put pressure on the Work Group to reconsider damaging proposals that are likely to increase rates of mental health diagnosis and add to the burden of ill health in diverse patient populations.

Please click through now to Dr Frances’ blog to demonstrate to the SSD Work Group and DSM-5 Task Force the high level of concern that continues for the implications of these SSD criteria.

And please circulate the link for Dr Frances’ opposition to these criteria on forums, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and websites and all health and patient advocacy platforms. 

The most recent proposals for new category “J 00 Somatic Symptom Disorder”

IASP and the Classification of Pain in ICD-11  Prof. Dr. Winfried Rief, University of Marburg,

Slide 9

Ed: Note that the requirement for “at least two from the B type criteria” was reduced to “at least one from the B type criteria” for the third iteration of draft proposals. This lowering of the threshold is presumably in order to accommodate the merging of the previously proposed “Simple Somatic Symptom Disorder” category into the “Complex Somatic Symptom Disorder” category, a conflation now proposed to be renamed to “Somatic Symptom Disorder,” also the disorder section name. A revised “Rationale/Validity” PDF document was not issued for the third and final draft. A brief, revised “Rationale” text was published on a Tab Page for the Somatic Symptom Disorder proposal and criteria but is no longer accessible.

Proposals, criteria and rationales, as posted for the third draft in May 2012, were removed from the DSM-5 Development website on November 15, 2012 and placed behind a non public log in. Criteria as they had stood for the third draft can no longer be viewed but are set out on Slide 9 in this presentation, which note, does not include three, optional Severity Specifiers that were included with the third draft criteria.

Related material

Somatic Symptom Disorder could capture millions more under mental health diagnosis

Submission to Somatic Symptom Disorder Work Group in response to third draft proposals