Back in the fall [c’est la vie…], I happened onto a site for a European group [STOP-DSM] centered in France that opposed the DSM [not just the DSM-5] and its influence on the ICD [International Classification of Diseases]. Here’s what I had to say about it back in November:Rather than trying to synopsize their points [and failing], I’ll point to their Manifest which summarizes all things. It’s called:
HAVING IT OUT ONCE AND FOR ALL WITH THE DSM
The Mandatory Diagnostic Reference to the DSM is contrary to scientific initiative; Harmful to treatments of the human psyche; Costly for governments; Paralyzing for research and teaching.
The term “psychical or mental suffering” cannot be confined to the traditional definition of “illnesses,” because it may impact anyone and everyone. The World Health Organization has deemed it a major priority, but then initially engaged itself in the struggle against it via a one-sided choice which views the Manual issued by the APA (American Psychiatric Association) as grounded in science. WHO’s restrictive choice bears the generic name of “DSM,” or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the third version of which stigmatizes conflicts that are important to psychiatric evaluation, and is contemporaneous with the treatment recommendations of the behavioralists and practitioners of CBT. Since its methods are not clearly delineated, they are also contributing to the promotion of an indispensable pharmacological accompaniment…
I recommend getting in a french frame of mind and reading the whole thing. If you read French, I’d suggest the french version. I can barely still read French, but English translation of french prose always loses some of the music. So maybe now I can explain why I thought of that trip to Yugoslavia in my late youth. I saw something artificial but I didn’t know it. It was a false unity forged for reasons of historical necessity and maintained by force. It contained the roots of failed monarchies, ethnic and religious hatred, the early 20th century conflicts between fascism and communism – all unresolved for more than a generation until they could later see the light of day. Reading the stop-DSM Manifest, I felt the same way. The authors weren’t afraid to be psychoanalysts or psychologists. They scoffed at phrases like "evidence-based" as a trick. They openly pointed to the hegemony of the Cognitive Behaviorists and the Psychopharmacologists in the DSMs. It reminded me of the heated debates we had in the 1970s [and all enjoyed]. And while it felt very french, it also seemed very real.
Chris Lane writes a column for Psychology Today called Side Effects, and has a post by guest contributor, Patrick Landman, Université de Paris VII, who is the President of STOP-DSM. Says Chris in introduction:
Why DSM-5 Concerns European Psychiatrists
Psychology Today: Side Effects
by Christopher Lane, Ph.D.
March 18, 2013
Last September, in a post called "Sentiment Rises in France," I reported on the arguments and concerns of Stop DSM, a group based in Paris comprising [among others] prominent psychiatrists and psychoanalysts disturbed by the power of the American Psychiatric Association and its "one-track" focus on biological psychiatry. Today, I am pleased to include the thoughts of Patrick Landman, a psychiatrist and associated researcher at the Université de Paris VII, who voices his own concerns about the likely effects of DSM-5, including on diagnostic and prescription rates across Europe. In excerpts from a longer essay he explains why the WHO should distance itself from DSM-5, how the manual has changed European psychiatry for the worse, and why practitioners around the world should boycott the edition. An impressive list of U.S. media reports on DSM-5 follows, itself indicating how closely Europeans are following the publication.
I’m not even going to try to synopsize Patrick Landman’s narrative. It’s something that ought to be read as he wrote it. He sits outside of our frame of reference, and it gives him a clearer vision than many of us writing about the DSM and this new revision. The purpose of my post is simple. Read what Patrick Landman has to say. He’s able to articulate a viewpoint that many Americans feel, but can’t get quite far enough away to find a way to say…
Dear Mickey,
Thanks for this article!
Also, I’m not sure if you already covered that the “International DSM-5 Response Committee” has finally put up a website and a petition? I just thought I’d share the links here.
http://dsm5response.com/
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/protectnormal/ (2,700+ signatures)
I like the idea of boycott, but, when you work in a profession filled with whores and cowards, asking for a boycott within this country’s borders is absurd to consider.
No, the manual will be printed, thousands of practitioners will follow it blindly, cause much discord and mayhem, then hopefully be sued and successfully litigated causing so much acrimony among professionals that THEN the manual will be seen as irrelevant and detrimental.
in other words, stupid Americans have to touch the stove to know it is hot. The problem is with this horrendous situation to play out, all those dumbass practitioners will be holding patients’ hands on the stove with their own.
Advocacy, concern for the welfare of man, Hippocratic Oath, those terms and concepts were flushed into the septic tank of greed and profit driven ideology years ago. Physicians who embraced the business model to medical care, well, I have to show some restraint when I write here, true?
Oh to be in Frisco next month…
Well, Joel, this movement and information from perspectives opposed to the bio-bio-bio-model of “mental health” could do many people the service of discouraging them from seeing a mental health professional or telling their GP that they feel “depressed” before having a physical and considering other options. And it could encourage a lot of people to question a diagnosis, a prognosis, and/or a medication, which would free them to examine the feelings they have about themselves that are due to the DSM and it’s attendant prescriptions . It could encourage people to look for alternatives within themselves and without.
Perhaps, such influences would, for you, result in fewer patients coming to you with the expectation that you will and should write them a prescription for a drug without examining other options that may have the power to address themselves, if only they were pointed in that direction.
You could also use you medical knowledge and training to help people safely discontinue drugs that are, at best, not helping.
What, I have been talking about rejecting the APA for months now, yet, do you think that the majority of psychiatrists in the US will do anything of substance to take a stand against this APA sabotage of care?
Just ask ANY active APA member why they belong after this fiasco was reported back in 2011? I’ll tell you why: because they don’t give a rat’s fecal pellet about the issue, because if they did, they would drop their membership faster than that pellet would hit the floor!
APA members are the textbook whores and cowards I have written about repeatedly for years. And they just want power and prestige as well. Frankly, the APA is so corrupt and devoid of any responsible representation of psychiatry as a profession, I hope the APA conference in San Francisco has an event of such ugliness or embarassment that any psychiatrist who has not taken a public stand to reject the organization will be quick to do so then!
Again, you cannot negotiate with narcissists and antisocials. It is what the APA is to me for the past 15 years! I am sorry this is harsh to have to read, but, the sheer arrogance and lack of judgment is so hideous and detrimental to my profession, it has to be called out for what it appears to be!!!