Cognitive Dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying, blaming, and denying. The phrase was coined by Leon Festinger in his 1956 […]
One of the most confusing things about the DSM is the seeming permanent category of Major Depressive Disorder through the revisions. Starting with the DSM-III, a variety of previous clinical depressive syndromes were conflated into a single category and there they remain. Formerly, Depressions were fractionated along multiple axes, one being the presence of a […]
No, this isn’t another post about the Psychosis Risk Syndrome. I’ve been clear about my thoughts already. I oppose adding it to the DSM-5. This post is intended to be a post about psychiatric diagnosis in general: Should Attenuated Psychosis Syndrome Be a DSM-5 Diagnosis? by William T. Carpenter, M.D. and Jim van Os, Ph.D. […]
After describing his personal experience with psychiatric medications, a physician who had considered psychiatry in his training, commented: …The upshot is that I’m glad to have steered clear of psychiatry, because I’d hate to be looking back on a career built on prescribing toxic medications to vulnerable patients who would have done much better with […]
Dr. Allen Frances has done a yeoman’s job of identifying problems in both the process and content of the proposed revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. But there’s something else about that enterprise that also needs to be added to the mix. Some examples. This is an article for general physicians in the Journal […]
Back in 2002, the APA [American Psychiatric Association] published a series of White Papers entitled A Research Agenda for DSM-V, Edited by David J. Kupfer, Michael B. First, and Darrel A. Regier, who were to lead the revision scheduled for 2013. The papers included: Basic Nomenclature Issues for DSM-V Neuroscience Research Agenda to Guide Development […]
Why is DSM being revised? DSM has been periodically reviewed and significantly revised since the publication of DSM-I in 1952. Particularly over the past two decades, there has been a wealth of new information in neurology, genetics and the behavioral sciences that dramatically expands our understanding of mental illness. Researchers have generated a wealth of […]
The Texas Medication Algorithm Project: Development and Implementation of the Schizophrenia Algorithm [full text on-line] by John A. Chiles, M.D., Alexander L. Miller, M.D., M. Lynn Crismon, Pharm.D., A. John Rush, M.D., Amy S. Krasnoff, M.A. and Steven S. Shon, M.D. Psychiatric Services 1999 50:69-74. The Texas Medication Algorithm Project is a program designed to […]
DSM 5 Against Everyone Else Its Research Types Just Don’t Understand The Clinical World DSM5 in Distress: Psychology Today by Allen J. Frances, M.D. November 1, 2011 … Strikingly, there seems to be virtually no support for DSM 5 outside the very narrow circle of the several hundred experts who have created it and the […]
Back in the later days of college and early medical school [early to mid 1960s], I had to put my passion for literature aside and concentrate on a endless diet of science. But there was one thread that I kept alive even then – the American authors of the generation before – particularly the Southern […]