DSM-5 Round up: February #1

DSM-5 Round up: February #1

Post #225 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-2F7

Update: More recent coverage:

The first in a series of three commentaries by Allen Frances, MD, on the Somatic Symptoms Disorder issue has received over 25,000 page views on Psychology Today, alone. It was also published at Huffington Post and on “Education Update,” and now also at Psychiatric Times.

Mislabeling Medical Illness As Mental Disorder

Allen Frances, MD | February 13, 2013

Fox Health News

A psychiatrist’s take on the DSM-5 Somatic Symptom Disorder diagnosis, Dr Keith Ablow, for Fox News Health:

Does somatic symptom disorder really exist?

Keith Ablow, MD |  for Fox News Health | February 14, 2013

Currents An interactive newsletter of NASW-WA

(Washington State Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers is a membership organization.)

DSM 5 Changes

DSM-5: A Summary of Proposed Changes

Carlton E. Munson, PhD, LCSW-C | February 12, 2013

The Health Care Blog

Mislabeling Medical Illness

Allen Frances, MD | February 12, 2013

Huffington Post Blogger

Bruce E. Levine
Practicing clinical psychologist, writer

DSM-5: Science or Dogma? Even Some Establishment Psychiatrists Embarrassed by Newest Diagnostic Bible

Bruce E. Levine | February 10, 2013

Earlier coverage:

Huffington Post

DSM-5: Science or Dogma? Even Some Establishment Psychiatrists Embarrassed by Newest Diagnostic Bible

Bruce E. Levine | February 10, 2013

Practicing clinical psychologist, writer

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DIE WELT/Worldcrunch All news is global

Translated (and possibly abridged) from original article in German

Worldcrunch All news is global

Psychiatrists Not Crazy About The Revised Manual Of Mental Disorders

Fanny Jiménez and Christiane Löll | February 5, 2013

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Allen Frances, MD, now blogs at Saving Normal.

Archive posts at DSM 5 in Distress will remain accessible and open for new comments.

Saving Normal
Mental health and what is normal.
by Allen Frances, M.D.

DSM 5 Boycotts and Petitions
Too many, too sectarian

Allen Frances, MD | February 8, 2013

There are already about a dozen different DSM 5 petitions and boycotts out there. This is completely understandable – there is lots in DSM 5 to be angry at or frightened about.

Unfortunately, though, this is not a case of more the merrier. Fragmentation into a number of small protests will greatly reduce their aggregate impact…

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David J. Kupfer, MD, chairs the DSM-5 Task Force. On February 8, Dr Kupfer published in defence of the SSD construct on Huffington Post. Part Three in the Allen Frances and Suzy Chapman series of commentaries on the SSD criteria was published earlier, last week, Saving Normal on Psychology Today:

Huffington Post

David J. Kupfer, M.D.
Chair, DSM-5 Task Force

Somatic Symptoms Criteria in DSM-5 Improve Diagnosis, Care

David J. Kupfer, MD | February 8, 2013

While the goal of the upcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is clear, accurate criteria for diagnosing mental disorders, the motivation behind the book’s revision was the improvement of diagnosis and clinical care. Somatoform disorders are one area where definitive progress was made.

Somatoform disorders are characterized by symptoms suggesting physical illness or injury, but which may not be fully explained by a general medical condition, another mental disorder, or by medication or substance side effects. The symptoms are either very distressing or result in significant disruption of an individual’s ability to function in daily life. People suffering from somatoform disorders are often initially seen in general medical settings as opposed to psychiatric settings…

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This new post from Christopher Lane on the DSM-5 ‘Somatic Symptom Disorder’ controversy has been designated a Psychology Today “Essential Read” editor pick:

Side Effects
From quirky to serious, trends in psychology and psychiatry
by Christopher Lane, Ph.D.

DSM-5 Has Gone to Press Containing a Major Scientific Gaffe
The APA declined to correct the error, despite multiple warnings.

Christopher Lane, PhD | February 8, 2013

When DSM-5 is published three months from now, in the middle of May, it will contain at least one major scientific gaffe. The Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association voted to include a definition of Somatic Symptom Disorder (SSD) so broad and over-inclusive that it is certain to include medical patients with an outsized concern about their health, as well as those who are merely vigilant in trying to maintain it…

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Lightweight feature in UK Times Magazine, Saturday, February 9, 2013:

The Asperger’s effect

Louise Carpenter | February 9 2013

Once it was a taboo. Now, in Silicon Valley, it’s almost a job qualification. So has the diagnosis lost its stigma, wonders Louise Carpenter…

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Article on mental health diagnosis and DSM-5 co-authored by Dr Raj Persaud, Consultant Psychiatrist, and Professor Sir Simon Wessely, Professor of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London.

http://www.simonwessely.com/dsm5.html

DSM-5 and the future of psychiatry
Did 2012 prove that psychiatric disease doesn’t exist?

From doctors.net.uk 1.2.2013

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At the end of this article is a link to a forthcoming CPD Certified conference at the Wolfson Lecture Theatre, Institute of Psychiatry, June 4-5, 2013:

Conference:

DSM-5 and the Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis: Where is the roadmap taking us?

A two day international conference following the publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) will take place at the Institute of Psychiatry on the 4th and 5th of June 2013.

Mental health practitioners and researchers around the world anticipate the DSM-5 that is due to published by the American Psychiatric Association within the first few months of 2013.

Discussions about the DSM-5 have stretched well beyond the world of academic psychiatry having become a matter of intense public interest and media coverage.

The aim of this conference is to have a rigorous and comprehensive discussion of the clinical, research, and public health implications of the DSM-5. The perspective is international and speakers will include top scientists, key policy makers, patient representatives, and front-line clinicians.

Speakers include:

Professor David Kupfer, Head of DSM-5 Planning Committee and Professor at the University of Pittsburgh

Professor William Carpenter, DSM-5 Task Force Member and Professor at the University of Maryland

Professor David Clark, Professor of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford

Dr Clare Gerada, General Practitioner and Chair of the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners

Professor Catherine Lord, Director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain and Professor at the University of Michigan

Professor Vikram Patel, Professor of International Mental Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Professor Nikolas Rose, Head of the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine, Kings College London

Sir Michael Rutter, First Professor of child psychiatry in the UK and Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at Kings College London

Professor Norman Sartorius, Former director of the World Health Organization’s Division of Mental Health, and a former president of the World Psychiatric Association

Price: £350 (including lunches and an evening reception)

Dates:

* Tuesday 4th June | 09:45- 17:30 (evening reception to follow)

* Wednesday 5th June | 09:45 – 17:15

Venue: Wolfson Lecture Theatre, Institute of Psychiatry

This event is CPD Certified

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DSM-5 Round up: January #2

DSM-5 Round up: January #2

Post #220 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-2Ce

Round up of recent media coverage of DSM-5 issues from US and UK spanning January 18 to January 28:

Scientific American

The Newest Edition of Psychiatry’s “Bible,” the DSM-5, Is Complete

The APA has finished revising the DSM and will publish the manual’s fifth edition in May 2013. Here’s what to expect

Ferris Jabr | January 28, 2013

For more than 11 years, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has been laboring to revise the current version of its best-selling guidebook, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (see “Psychiatry’s Bible Gets an Overhaul” in Scientific American MIND). Although the DSM is often called the bible of psychiatry, it is not sacred scripture to all clinicians—many regard it more as a helpful corollary to their own expertise. Still, insurance companies in the U.S. often require an official DSM diagnosis before they help cover the costs of medication or therapy, and researchers find it easier to get funding if they are studying a disorder officially recognized by the manual. This past December the APA announced that it has completed the lengthy revision process and will publish the new edition—the DSM-5—in May 2013, after some last (presumably minor) rounds of editing and proofreading. Below are the APA’s final decisions about some of the most controversial new disorders as well as hotly debated changes to existing ones, including a few surprises not anticipated by close observers of the revision process…

Update: New material above

New York Times | New Old Age Blogs | Medical Issues

Time to Recognize Mild Cognitive Disorder?

Paula Span| January 25, 2013

Dr. Allen Frances, chairman of the task force that developed the previous Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, predicts inclusion of Mild Neurocognitive Disorder in the new version will lead to “wild overdiagnosis.”

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published and periodically updated by the American Psychiatric Association, is one of those documents few laypeople ever read, but many of us are affected by…

Medscape Medical News Psychiatry

No Impact of DSM-5 Criteria on Alcohol Disorder Prevalence

Deborah Brauser | January 25, 2013

Although criteria used to assess serious alcohol problems will be revised in the upcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), these changes will not likely affect the prevalence of these disorders, new research suggests…

Huffington Post Blogs | Allen Frances, MD

Why Will DSM-5 Cost $199 a Copy?

Allen Frances, MD | January 25, 2013

DSM-5 has just announced its price — an incredible $199 (and the paperback is also no bargain at a hefty $149). Compare this to $25 for a DSM III in 1980; $65 for a DSM IV in 1994; and $84 for a DSM-IV-TR in 2000. The price tag on a copy of DSM is escalating at more than twice the rate of inflation.

What’s going on?

Huffington Post Blogs | Allen Frances, MD

Terrible News: DSM-5 Refuses to Reduce Overdiagnosis of ‘Somatic Symptom Disorder’

Allen Frances, MD | January 18, 2013

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).

DSM-5 defines SSD so over-inclusively that it will mislabel one in six people with cancer and heart disease, one in four with irritable bowel syndrom and fibromyalgia, and one in 14 who are not even medically ill.

I hoped to be able to influence the DSM-5 work group to correct this in two 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…

New York Times | New Old Age Blogs | Medical Issues

Grief Over New Depression Diagnosis

Paula Span | January 24, 2013, 6:40 am

The next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders will not only abandon the Roman numerals, but will also leave grief considerations out of diagnoses for depression.
When the American Psychiatric Association unveils a proposed new version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the bible of psychiatric diagnoses, it expects controversy. Illnesses get added or deleted, acquire new definitions or lists of symptoms. Everyone from advocacy groups to insurance companies to litigators — all have an interest in what’s defined as mental illness — pays close attention. Invariably, complaints ensue…

TIME | Alcohol

Revisions to Mental Health Manual May Turn Binge Drinkers into ‘Mild’ Alcoholics

Maia Szalavitz | January 23, 2013

Are you an alcoholic— or just a problem drinker? It may not matter, according to the latest version of the DSM, psychiatry’s diagnostic manual.

And now, in a new study of the different levels of alcohol misuse, scientists say the changes made to the DSM-5 may not even represent a significant improvement in the diagnosis of alcoholism. In fact, the revised definition collapses the medical distinction between problem drinking and alcoholism, potentially leading college binge drinkers to be mislabeled as possible lifelong alcoholics. The changes take effect in May, when the DSM-5 will be released…

EurekAlert! Press Release | January 22, 2013

Will Proposed DSM-5 Changes to Assessment of Alcohol Problems Do Any Better?

Proposed changes to the upcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) will affect the criteria used to assess alcohol problems. One change would collapse the two diagnoses of alcohol abuse (AA) and alcohol dependence (AD) into a single diagnosis called alcohol use disorder (AUD). A second change would remove “legal problems,” and a third would add a criterion of “craving.” A study of the potential consequences of these changes has found they are unlikely to significantly change the prevalence of diagnoses…

Medpage Today

Psych Group Posts Glimpses of Final DSM-5

John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today | January 21, 2013

Peeks into the final DSM-5, the controversial new edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual, are now available from the group prior to the guide’s official May 22 debut…

British Psychological Society

Professor Peter Kinderman writes on DSM-5 for the BBC News website

January 18, 2013

People diagnosed with a mental illness need help and understanding, not labels and medication. That is the message of an article published on the BBC News Health pages today by Professor Peter Kinderman from the University of Liverpool, a former chair of our Division of Clinical Psychology…

[BBC News Health report below]

BBC News Health

‘Grief and anxiety are not mental illnesses’

Peter Kinderman, Professor of Clinical Psychology | January 18, 2013

The forthcoming edition of an American psychiatric manual will increase the number of people in the general population diagnosed with a mental illness – but what they need is help and understanding, not labels and medication.

Many people experience a profound and long-lasting grieving process following the death of a loved one. Many soldiers returning from conflict suffer from trauma. Many of us are shy and anxious in social situations or unmotivated and pessimistic if we’re unemployed or dislike our jobs…

Psychiatric Times

DSM-5 Field Trials: What Was Learned

James Phillips, MD | January, 8 2013

With DSM-5 now approved by the APA Board of Trustees—and, to the dismay of this reader, all discussion removed from the DSM-5 Web site—how are we to evaluate the results of the field trials for the end product? I suggest beginning with the short piece published in Psychiatric News, “What We Learned from DSM-5 Field Trials.”1 Authors David Kupfer and Helena Kraemer wrote, “We ultimately tested the criteria for 23 disorders. The question we asked was a straightforward one: In the hands of regular clinicians, assessing typically symptomatic patients in no different way than they would during everyday practice, was a particular disorder reliable?”

DSM-5 Round up: January #1

DSM-5 Round up: January #1

Post #218 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-2Bs

American Journal of Psychiatry

Editorials | January 01, 2013

The Initial Field Trials of DSM-5: New Blooms and Old Thorns

Robert Freedman, M.D.; David A. Lewis, M.D.; Robert Michels, M.D.; Daniel S. Pine, M.D.; Susan K. Schultz, M.D.; Carol A. Tamminga, M.D.; Glen O. Gabbard, M.D.; Susan Shur-Fen Gau, M.D., Ph.D.; Daniel C. Javitt, M.D., Ph.D.; Maria A. Oquendo, M.D., Ph.D.; Patrick E. Shrout, Ph.D.; Eduard Vieta, M.D., Ph.D.; Joel Yager, M.D.

Am J Psychiatry 2013;170:1-5. 10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12091189

View Author and Article Information
Copyright © 2013 by the American Psychiatric Association

Article
Figures
References

“A rose is a rose is a rose” (1). For psychiatric diagnosis, we still interpret this line as Robins and Guze did for their Research Diagnostic Criteria—that reliability is the first test of validity for diagnosis (2). To develop an evidence-based psychiatry, the Robins and Guze strategy (i.e., empirically validated criteria for the recognizable signs and symptoms of illness) was adopted by DSM-III and DSM-IV. The initial reliability results from the DSM-5 Field Trials are now reported in three articles in this issue (3–5). As for all previous DSM editions, the methods used to assess reliability reflect current standards for psychiatric investigation (3). Independent interviews by two different clinicians trained in the diagnoses, each prompted by a computerized checklist, assessment of agreement across different academic centers, and a pre-established statistical plan are now employed for the first time in the DSM Field Trials. As for most new endeavors, the end results are mixed, with both positive and disappointing findings…

Full free text

Washington Post

Antidepressants to treat grief? Psychiatry panelists with ties to drug industry say yes

Peter Whoriskey | December 27, 2012

It was a simple experiment in healing the bereaved: Twenty-two patients who had recently lost a spouse were given a widely used antidepressant.

The drug, marketed as Wellbutrin, improved “major depressive symptoms occurring shortly after the loss of a loved one,” the report in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry concluded.

When, though, should the bereaved be medicated? For years, the official handbook of psychiatry, issued by the American Psychiatric Association, advised against diagnosing major depression when the distress is “better accounted for by bereavement.” Such grief, experts said, was better left to nature.

But that may be changing…

Medscape Medical News > Psychiatry

APA Answers Criticism of Pharma-Influenced Bias in DSM-5

Deborah Brauser | January 4, 2013

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has fired back a strong response to a recent article by the Washington Post questioning the possibility of pharmaceutical industry influence on decisions regarding the upcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)…

Ed: Note for watchers of DSM-5’s Timeline. Although the Timeline has the final texts schedule for submission to the publishers by December 2012, in his commentary below, Dr Frances discloses that DSM-5 will go to press at the end of January. The new edition of DSM is slated for release at the APA’s 166th Annual Meeting, May 18-22, 2013, San Francisco.

Psychology Today

DSM5 in Distress
The DSM’s impact on mental health practice and research
by Allen Frances, M.D.

Last Plea to DSM 5: Save Grief From the Drug Companies
Let us respect the dignity of love and loss.

Allen J. Frances, M.D. | January 3, 2013

Psychiatric News
Psychiatric News | January 04, 2013
Volume 48 Number 1 page 7-7
10.1176/appi.pn.2013.1a14
American Psychiatric Association
Professional News

Eating-Disorders Guideline Still Current and Valid, Panel Finds

Mark Moran | January 4, 2013

A review of the 2006 APA practice guideline on eating disorders finds that it is substantially current and is not affected by changes in diagnostic criteria in DSM-5.

Huffington Post

‘Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified’: What’s Changing With EDNOS In DSM-5?

Catherine Pearson | January 4, 2013

It took Autumn Whitefield-Madrano more than 20 years to seek treatment for her eating disorder. The writer was 9 when she started having symptoms, primarily binging, and 33 when she finally got help. When she did, the diagnosis surprised her. Whitefield-Madrano had EDNOS, or an “Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified…”

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