The Council of Nicea The Council of Nicea was convened by Emperor Constantine in 325 and is widely seen as the foundational moment for the organized christian church. At the time, the reason for the gathering was a doctrinal controversy over the relationship between Jesus and God. Were they on equal footing [co-eternal] as the […]
Robert Spitzer was not remiss in rethinking the nosology of psychiatry. The two previous versions had been more testimonials to the our early thinkers than classifications of disease. And there’s no question that there would’ve been complaints no matter what direction he moved. I suppose that it must be true that any revolution is preoccupied […]
Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the Second Coming […]
I searched the APA Program .pdf for "conflict of interest," "ghost writing," "scientific advisory board," "speakers bureau," etc. but got no hits. I guess those topics aren’t on the radar. I found all of the breakthrough freaks on the program except John Rush. Jeffrey Lieberman is presenting the OMH SHAPEMEDs checklist from NY State. It’s […]
Looking at the APA meeting currently going on in Honolulu, I ran across a few items of note. On the opening page, there are some upbeat videos, Outgoing President Carol Bernstein leads off, but the one I gravitated to was Tom Insel, Director of the NIMH. Since his poor showing in shepherding Dr, Nemeroff’s move […]
Kuhnian paradigm shifts: An epistemological paradigm shift was called a scientific revolution by epistemologist and historian of science Thomas Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. A scientific revolution occurs, according to Kuhn, when scientists encounter anomalies which cannot be explained by the universally accepted paradigm within which scientific progress has thereto been […]
The Tenets of the neo-Kraepelinian approach: 1. Psychiatry is a branch of medicine. 2. Psychiatry should utilize modern scientific methodologies and base its practice on scientific knowledge. 3. Psychiatry treats people who are sick and who require treatment. 4. There is a boundary between the normal and the sick. 5. There are discrete mental illnesses. […]
Why linger so long on the DSM-III? For starters, it deserves it, given the magnitude of the consequences. Another more concrete reason is that I don’t have a DSM-IIIR and I can’t find it on the Internet, so I’m waiting for my $4.71 + shipping Amazon version to arrive. But there’s a further reason that […]
DSM-III [Introduction p. 6]: "In DSM-III there is no assumption that each Mental Disorder is a discrete entity with sharp boundaries [discontinuity] between it and other mental disorders, as well as between it and No Mental Disorder. For example, there has been a continuing controversy as to whether or not severe depressive disorder and mild […]
The Dictionary of Disorder How one man revolutionized psychiatry The New Yorker by Alix Spiegel January 3, 2005 I seem to specialize in being in the vicinity of big things happening – oblivious to what’s going on around the corner. I mentioned leaving Emory’s Department of Psychiatry a few years before Dr. Nemeroff arrived and […]