“I resigned from those committees [DSM IV] after two years because I was appalled by the way I saw that good scientific research was often being ignored, distorted, or lied about and the way that junk science was being used as though it were of high quality, if that suited the aims of those in charge. I also resigned because I was increasingly learning that giving someone a psychiatric label was extremely unlikely to reduce their suffering but carried serious risks of harm, and when I had reported these concerns and examples of harm to those at the top, they had ignored or even publicly misrepresented the facts.”
Dr. Paula Caplan. The late Dr Caplan was a former professor of psychology, assistant professor in psychiatry and director of the Centre for Women’s Studies at the University of Toronto.
I have a stupidly large collection of vintage books. I found this gem while cleaning. In lieu of exercising to get my heart rate up I decided to crack the pages. My blood pressure did go up.
Written by a man, of course. 1952. I think his qualification was “i know some women”
Also.. It reminded me that I can’t be upset with Lori when I tell her to clean her room and two hours later the room is still a mess but she is playing with a toy she forgot she had.. we are the same.
Regarding Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V:
"Steven E. Hyman, the former director of NIMH condemned the whole enterprise. It was, he pronounced, ‘totally wrong in a way [its authors] couldn’t have imagined. So in fact what they produced was an absolute scientific nightmare. Many people who get one diagnosis get five diagnoses, but they don’t have five diseases – they have one underlying condition."
S E Hyman. Director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Director of the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) 1996 – 2001. From A Scull. Mad Science: The Treatment of Mental Illness Fails to Progress [Excerpt] Scientific American. 2015.
All through psychiatry's history there have been attempts to manipulate and control aspects of society way beyond any clinical address and b
“Given its importance, you might think that the DSM represents the authoritative distillation of a large body of scientific evidence. It is instead the product of a complex of academic politics, personal ambition, ideology and, perhaps most important, the influence of the pharmaceutical industry. What the DSM lacks is evidence.
“The problem with the DSM is that in all of its editions it has simply reflected the opinions of its writers. Not only did the DSM become the bible of psychiatry, but like the real Bible, it depends on something akin to revelation. There are no citations of scientific studies to support its decisions. That is an astonishing omission, because in all medical publications, whether journals or books, statements of fact are supposed to be supported by citations of scientific studies”.
From: Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption by Maria Angell MD, former Editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, Senior Lecturer, Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School. 2009.
All through psychiatry's history there have been attempts to manipulate and control aspects of society way beyond any clinical address and b
1. The beginning of ‘modern’ psychiatry – a descent into hell
This examination of the beginnings of modern psychiatry well into the first half of the 20th century does not provide us with momentous breakthroughs and heroic efforts to assist mankind. What we find instead is a subject based on speculation rather than science, unable to establish causes of mental illness and whose primary solution was to murder the very people it should have been caring for.
This examination of the beginnings of modern psychiatry finds a subject based on speculation rather than science, unable to establish causes
To support psychiatry's push for psychotropic drugs, the world is being subjected to the largest-ever attempt to classify populations into ever-expanding categories of “disorders” or undesirable states.
This is being done through the similarly ever-expanding categories of disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) since DSM III. (Published 1980 and III is the basis for all later versions.)
This activity which has subjected millions of people to these questionably effective drugs with often appalling side-effects should undoubtedly be based on science. But is it?
“[As] psychiatry is unable to depend on biological markers* to justify including disorders in the DSM, we looked for other things – behavioral, psychological – we had other procedures…. Our general principle was that if a large enough number of clinicians felt that a diagnostic concept was important in their work then we were likely to add it as a new category. That was essentially it. It became a question of how much consensus there was to recognise and include a particular disorder.” Robert Spitzer. DSM III Task Force Chair.
“There was very little systematic research, and much of the research that existed was really a hodgepodge—scattered, inconsistent, and ambiguous. I think the majority of us recognised that the amount of good, solid science upon which we were making our decisions was pretty modest.”Theodore Millon. DSM III Task Force.
(*biological markers are any objectively observed biological sign that indicates a medical condition, where that indicator can be measured accurately and reproduced. As DSM III was said to bring about the return to 'biological psychiatry', that there were no biological markers should have been seen as the first sign that something was very wrong.)
All through psychiatry's history there have been attempts to manipulate and control aspects of society way beyond any clinical address and b
