[Reblog] Pathologizing the Human Condition

There are times where I believe medications are the only answer to moderate to severe mental conditions.

 

Light bedtime reading (Photo credit: Richard Masoner / Cyclelicious)

 

However, as one of the comments stated, is the exponential increase in diagnoses largely due to the influence of BigPharma???

 

From the 1 Sept 2013 article by Dan Peters at the Health Care Blog

 

The American Psychiatric Association recently published a new version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). The DSM-5 is what medical, mental health, and chemical dependency professionals use to diagnose developmental, mental health, substance abuse and dependence, learning, and personality “disorders.” Now in its 5^th edition, the DSM was first published in 1952. At that time, the DSM was 129 pages containing 106 diagnoses.

Now, 61 years later, the DSM-5 consists of approximately 950 pages and roughly 375 diagnoses. The DSM-5, while researched far more than previous editions, is based on the medical model or the model of disease. Simply put, the medical model finds the causes of disease and illness and then prescribes a treatment to cure the disease or illness. This means a person has a pathology or pathogen that needs to be treated and cured.

…

Without going into detail about some of the changes in the newest edition of the DSM, some diagnostic categories have been added and some diagnosis “thresholds” have been lowered. This means that you need fewer symptoms to “meet diagnostic criteria.” Here are some examples of concerns with the new DSM-5:

• Temper tantrums will now be diagnosed as Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
• Normal forgetting will now be diagnosed as Minor Neurocognitive Disorder
• Gluttony will be diagnosed as Binge Eating Disorder
• Grief will be diagnosed as Major Depression
• First time substance users and college partiers will get a diagnosis of Substance Use Disorder
• Everyday Worry will be diagnosed as Generalized Anxiety Disorder 

And what’s the number one treatment for all of these diagnoses? Medication.

 

Read the entire article here

 

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