> Denying the existence of mental disorders is dangerous and harmful to those who indeed have these disorders.
The people you're talking about aren't denying the existence of real disorders, they're denying the existence of phony disorders -- and there are plenty.
Asperger's, popular a few years ago, is now recognized as a myth and has been removed from the DSM. Until the mid-'70s homosexuality was listed among the phony mental illnesses, finally removed after much pressure was put on the practitioners of this pseudoscience.
> The science on this is very strong.
The science of this is practically nonexistent. Are you aware that the director of the NIMH, the highest-ranking psychiatrist in the country, has recently decided to pull the plug on the DSM, describing it as too unscientific to be useful? And that, by pulling the plug on psychiatry's "Bible", he pulled the plug on psychiatry's dubious standing as a science?
> The problems these disorders cause the individual are very real and unmistakeably negative.
No more real than the average placebo response, which as time passes is becoming the default assumption that must be taken into account and that cannot be categorically eliminated until science eventually enters the field.
There is a core of very serious cases, like schizophrenia and some bipolar sufferers, but those are not mental illnesses, they are physical ailments with psychological symptoms. Purely mental illnesses have no scientific explanation, no reliable diagnostic criteria, and no treatments -- which is why the DSM is being abandoned.
> Sometimes conspiracy nuts equate mental disorders with some kind of "dissident" behavior that has to be censors.
You mean, like the editor of DSM-IV, now a critic of the mental health field, who has just written a book arguing that the epidemic of overdiagnosis collides with natural diversity? Like that? Are you aware that nature thrives on a wide spectrum of behaviors, that such a spectrum represents the genesis of all future improvements in the species?
Quote: "While DSM has been described as a “Bible” for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” – each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity."
> Asperger's wasn't "removed" from the DSM-IV, as you claim
First, I never said any such thing. Asperger's was removed from DSM-5, not DSM-IV.
Second, Asperger's was removed from the current DSM, i.e. DSM-5. It was removed because, as one of the voting committee members said, "it's not a evidence-based term."
Asperger's wasn't "folded into" anything. It was recognized as a condition that was so vaguely defined that it could mean anything or nothing. What was folded in the the autism spectrum are those individuals who actually want continued treatment for something less romantic and more stigmatizing.
It wasn't Asperger's that was folded into the autism spectrum, it was those people who, after losing the chance to have a mental illness diagnosis in common with Bill Gates and Albert Einstein, still plan to have anything to do with psychiatry or psychology.
ADHD has been well validated. Untreated it not only severely impacts "success" and "earning potential", it also leads to severe other problems like depression and social problems.
Face it: People with ADHD are way unhappier. And that isn't entirely the fault of society. If you are more impulsive, less able to take care of yourself or others, then it is really hard to imagine how you are supposed to feel as well as others...
So has Bigfoot. The difference between Bigfoot and a Grizzly bear is tangible evidence.
Want to prove that ADHD is real? Meet science's requirements, primarily a defined cause, unambiguous evidence, and falsifiability -- the possibility of definitively saying that a given person does not have ADHD.
This is not to argue that ADHD doesn't exist -- it is to say that this is not a matter of science, and until there's some science, anyone can claim to have ADHD, or PTSD, or Asperger's, or claim to have been raped by her father when she is in fact a virgin:
There will eventually be science where psychology now stands. But that process cannot begin until people begin to adopt a skeptical outlook appropriate to the subject's unscientific basis.
This is why the NIMH has decided to drop the DSM, and psychiatry along with it.
>There is a core of very serious cases, like schizophrenia and some bipolar sufferers, but those are not mental illnesses, they are physical ailments with psychological symptoms. Purely mental illnesses have no scientific explanation, no reliable diagnostic criteria, and no treatments -- which is why the DSM is being abandoned.
What about depression? OCD? Anxieties? Are they "physical ailments with psychological symptoms"?
> What about depression? OCD? Anxieties? Are they "physical ailments with psychological symptoms"?
No one knows, and anyone who claims to know is speaking without any scientific backing. This will eventually change, primarily because of a move away from psychology toward neuroscience, but this is not going to happen quickly.
I will say this. Eventually "mental disorders" will all be either abandoned or turned into treatable biological disorders, diseases with know causes, just like medicine. But that's not around the corner -- it will take years or decades.
A neuroscience operation was recently performed on a woman who was so depressed that her life was essentially over -- she was institutionalized, unable to function at all. In the procedure, a location in the brain called "area 25" was stimulated using criteria that had worked with laboratory animals.
When the electric field was applied, the woman's depression lifted instantly -- instantly. The procedure is still experimental and is not safe for ordinary cases of depression, but it shows where we're headed:
It is examples like this that explain why I and many other people are advocating a move away from psychiatry and psychology -- the resources being expended on those activities are being wasted, and are taken away from things that might work.
The people you're talking about aren't denying the existence of real disorders, they're denying the existence of phony disorders -- and there are plenty.
Asperger's, popular a few years ago, is now recognized as a myth and has been removed from the DSM. Until the mid-'70s homosexuality was listed among the phony mental illnesses, finally removed after much pressure was put on the practitioners of this pseudoscience.
> The science on this is very strong.
The science of this is practically nonexistent. Are you aware that the director of the NIMH, the highest-ranking psychiatrist in the country, has recently decided to pull the plug on the DSM, describing it as too unscientific to be useful? And that, by pulling the plug on psychiatry's "Bible", he pulled the plug on psychiatry's dubious standing as a science?
> The problems these disorders cause the individual are very real and unmistakeably negative.
No more real than the average placebo response, which as time passes is becoming the default assumption that must be taken into account and that cannot be categorically eliminated until science eventually enters the field.
There is a core of very serious cases, like schizophrenia and some bipolar sufferers, but those are not mental illnesses, they are physical ailments with psychological symptoms. Purely mental illnesses have no scientific explanation, no reliable diagnostic criteria, and no treatments -- which is why the DSM is being abandoned.
> Sometimes conspiracy nuts equate mental disorders with some kind of "dissident" behavior that has to be censors.
You mean, like the editor of DSM-IV, now a critic of the mental health field, who has just written a book arguing that the epidemic of overdiagnosis collides with natural diversity? Like that? Are you aware that nature thrives on a wide spectrum of behaviors, that such a spectrum represents the genesis of all future improvements in the species?
"Saving Normal" (Allen Frances): http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Normal-Out-Control-Medicalizati...
NIMH director Insel: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...
Quote: "While DSM has been described as a “Bible” for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” – each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity."
Couldn't have said it better myself.