Everybody has a mental disorder.
(Reuters) - An updated edition of a mental health bible for doctors may include diagnoses for "disorders" such as toddler tantrums and binge eating, experts say, and could mean that soon no-one will be classed as normal. Leading mental health experts gave a briefing on Tuesday to warn that a new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is being revised now for publication in 2013, could devalue the seriousness of mental illness and label almost everyone as having some kind of disorder. Citing examples of new additions like "mild anxiety depression," "psychosis risk syndrome," and "temper dysregulation disorder," they said many people previously seen as perfectly healthy could in future be told they are ill. "It's leaking into normality. It is shrinking the pool of what is normal to a puddle," said Til Wykes of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London. The DSM is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and contains descriptions, symptoms, and other criteria for diagnosing mental disorders. It is seen as the global diagnostic bible for the field of mental health medicine. The criteria are designed to provide clear definitions for professionals who treat patients with mental disorders, and for researchers and pharmaceutical drug companies seeking to develop new ways of treating them. Wykes and colleagues Felicity Callard, also of Kings' Institute of Psychiatry, and Nick Craddock of Cardiff University's department of psychological medicine and neurology, said many in the psychiatric community are worried that the further the guidelines are expanded, the more likely it will become that nobody will be classed as normal any more. "Technically, with the classification of so many new disorders, we will all have disorders," they said in a joint statement. "This may lead to the belief that many more of us 'need' drugs to treat our 'conditions' -- (and) many of these drugs will have unpleasant or dangerous side effects." The scientists said "psychosis risk syndrome" diagnosis was particularly worrying, since it could falsely label young people who may only have a small risk of developing an illness. "It's a bit like telling 10 people with a common cold that they are "at risk for pneumonia syndrome" when only one is likely to get the disorder," Wykes told the briefing. The American Psychiatric Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The scientists gave examples from the previous revision to the DSM, which was called DSM 4 and included broader diagnoses and categories for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism and childhood bipolar disorders. This, they said, had "contributed to three false epidemics" of these conditions, particularly in the United States. "During the last decade, how many doctors were harangued by worried parents into giving drugs like Ritalin to children who didn't really need it?," their statement asked. Millions of people across the world, many of them children, take ADHD drugs including Novartis' Ritalin, which is known generically as methylphenidate, and similar drugs such as Shire Plc's Adderall and Vyvanse. In the United States alone, sales of these drugs was about $4.8 billion in 2008. Wykes and Callard published a comment in The Journal of Mental Health expressing their concern about the upcoming DSM revision and highlighting another 10 or more papers in the same journal from other scientists who were also worried. DSM 5 is due to be published in May 2013.
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As I see it, there are three possibilities: 1) I am sane, whereas the vast majority of the world's population are insane. 2) I am insane, whereas the vast majority of the world's population are sane. 3) We are all, to some degree, insane. I tend to believe this possibility above the others, because: I am most definitely not sane. People are so incredibly stupid that they must suffer from some mental disorder or other. Sanity suggests a universal mental state, which does not exist. Side: True
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There are more "mental disorders" than insanity. Side: False
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Fucking true, Did you read the debate description? everyone I meet is depressed, OCD, ADD, ADHD or some other thing But are they real disorders, or imaginary ones? Are they just being drugged for it, or do they truly have it? it was better when the world was crazy or not. With better grammar and contextual understanding, I'd be able to understand what you mean by this. Side: False
Did you read the debate description? Yes. But are they real disorders, or imaginary ones? Are they just being drugged for it, or do they truly have it? That is something that only a proper evaluation can answer With better grammar and contextual understanding, I'd be able to understand what you mean by this. I mean, smart ass, that it was easier when there wasn't so many different problems, as labels were just applied, and life moved on. Side: True
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Yes, that's what we need, more drugs! More drugs to fix more disorders. Yes, just pile on the drugs! - Ridiculous. What causes these mental disorders to eneter the genetic code? What permits these inferior traits to be past from one generation to another? Modern technology. Technology has diverged since the industrial revolution. Some technologies were created to open up new vistas in production and study, other technologies came to cater to our shortcomings. The latter permitted persons with inferior traits to have another chance to pass on their genes. Not surprisingly, this has caught up to us. We are all becoming inferior, and the genetically sound are becoming more scarce. We've unintentionally ruined ourselves. Luckily, we still have generational mutations to hope for. Some of the best traits, I assume, are yet to come. For instance, there is polydactyly, the condition of having extra digits on the hands or feet. That would be great. Side: True
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I'd like to argue with the following: (Reuters) - An updated edition of a mental health bible for doctors may include diagnoses for "disorders" such as toddler tantrums and binge eating, experts say, and could mean that soon no-one will be classed as normal. If disorders are defined in such a way that most people have them, then it must become normal to have a disorder. Normal doesn't intrinsically require that a person be free of mental defects, just that he possess a mental state comparable to the majority in a bell-curve model. Secondly, I'd like to say that in my view, most people around me have mental defects. I can't claim that they are necessarily disorders, but the ways in which many normal people disagree with me are indicative of a flawed mental process. Side: True
Yes. Good point. I think it's worth adopting a statistical definition. Something like: For a given trait (assuming a bell curve): 1. normality being within three standard deviations of the estimated population mean; 2. abnormality being > +/- 3 s.d. from the mean. 3. disorder being an abnormality which has harmful effects or carries a meaningful risk of having harmful effects either for yourself or for others. Here, I'm distinguishing between abnormality and disorder. The first means you're unusual, the second says their's a risk associated with that unusualness. If the question was: Everybody has abnormal mental traits. then I'd have to agree. Side: False
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Ah yes. A great time to be going into the pharmaceutical industry. The customer base is just going to sky rocket. We could tell people they're broken but they didn't know it. But we do know it and would be happy to cure them of their issues for just a couple of hundred dollars. We're in the money, We're in the money, We've got a lot of what it takes to get along. I think the DSM should be split out into three publications: one consisting of clinical conditions requiring medical intervention, the second consisting of sub-clinical conditions which require attention and occasionally require medication, and the third consisting of normal conditions which require no attention or medication but patients may present if they wish to change the condition through counselling and simple thought exercises. The third volume would really just be an inventory of personality traits which are not socially problematic to the person but they may not be happy with the trait. Presenting for one of these conditions would be the psychiatric equivalent of a perfectly healthy young woman asking for breast enlargements so that she can just feel more attractive. Side: False
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Never before have I heard the definition of normal in the United States of America. The way to define 'normal' has always been to describe 'abnormal' traits which are 'not normal'. Just because something is 'not normal' does not make it's opposite 'normal'. I heard a story on National Public Radio recently, originally aired in January 2002, about the GAYPA, gay psychologists who met secretly before homosexuality was removed from the DSM as a mental disorder. These members of the American Psychiatric Association never discussed their sexual orientation because they had accepted their 'condition' as a disease. Which I think is more or less depressing (not chronological, or Prozac depressing, just kind of sad in a sympathizing way of their state of mind at the time on their 'condition' and their need for secrecy). The point here is lack of understanding can really mess people up. Then there is the pop culture psychology. The following conditions are not real mental disorders, and should they be recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the psychiatric field would lose most, if not all, prestige. Jekyll and Hyde Syndrome, Dorian Gray Syndrome, Peter Pan Syndrome, terrible twos. There are more. Not to belittle real mental disorders like bipolar or obsessive compulsive disorders. If parents suspect their children of having ADD or ADHD, there is a simple at home test they can administer. Espresso, give your child a single or double shot of espresso, if the result is hyperactivity, increase in body temperature or strong need to speak, your child does not have ADD or ADHD. Five dollars at Starbucks is significantly less than two hundred dollars at the shrink. Should the teacher(s) of your child recommend medication to improve his/her academic performance, less time on Facebook, XBox, TiVo, and the likes would suffice. Side: False
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If parents suspect their children of having ADD or ADHD, there is a simple at home test they can administer. Espresso, give your child a single or double shot of espresso, if the result is hyperactivity, increase in body temperature or strong need to speak, your child does not have ADD or ADHD. It's funny you mention this, because I was recently thinking about how I can drink a 4 or 6 shot Mocha and fall asleep ten minutes later. I guess I'm immune to caffeine or... have a symptom of those disorders you mention, haha. Side: False
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I think the word disorder is a pretty harsh word to use: She nearly died of pneumonia and a blood disorder disease, infection, complaint, problem, condition, affliction, malady, sickness, illness, ailment, infirmity; defect, irregularity If you are meaning that everyone thinks differently, then I agree.. But disorder? Side: False
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