Australian Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry’s Global Agenda for “Pre-Psychosis Risk Syndrome” Takes A Hit from Former DSM Task Force Member, Psychiatrist Allen Frances

The “Psychosis Risk” proposal has stimulated widespread opposition (even I am told from within the Workgroup itself). The arguments against it are simply overwhelming. The false positive rate in predicting psychosis would be between 70-90%, meaning that between two and nine youngsters would be misidentified for every one accurately identified. The treatment most likely to be used would be antipsychotic medications. These have no proven efficacy in preventing psychosis, but most definitely have terrible side effects- especially enormous weight gain and its life threatening complications. These medications are overprescribed to those least able to resist- the young and those who are most financially disadvantaged.

Badmouthing Your Ex Could be a Psychiatric Disorder

The diagnosis of Parental Alienation Disorder is being considered for inclusion in the upcoming edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Advocacy groups and clinicians are pushing for it to go through – saying that it’s a real condition that affects a huge number of children.

The Guardian: Mental Health Diagnoses Mask the Real Problems—Range of new diagnoses is mythology, not scientific text

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, whose updated fifth edition will include a range of new diagnoses, is a mythology, not a scientific text. It is created by American psychiatrists who meet in groups to consider whether or not a certain diagnosis should be included in the DSM. These groups meet a number of times so that they can say that their agreement about a certain diagnosis is reliable. Thus they could reliably agree that there is a mental disorder called Guardian Readers’ Personality Disorder with the symptoms of a need to read this paper regularly, an overvaluation of the Guardian, and so on. Who knows, it might already be in the most recent version of the DSM.

Biological Psychiatry—Following the Money

Despite the public relations campaign aimed at “de-stigmatizing mental illness,” scores of permanent, stereotyping labels are assigned to what are basically annoying habits: clicking a pen repeatedly (anxiety), talking fast (hysteria), repeating a favorite song over and over (obsessive-compulsive disorder), wiggling in a chair (hyperactive). Even crazes like text-messaging are not immune from diagnosis. Attitudes that may be in bad taste or out-of-fashion, but certainly not “dangerous” or “wrong,” are also viewed with suspicion and sometimes criminalized.