Voices from the Shadows

Mislabelling Medical Illness As Mental Disorder by Allen Frances MD

Psychiatric Diagnoses are categorised by the DSM-IV which stands for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition  This manual is published by the American Psychiatric Association. It covers all mental health disorders for both children and adults and is considered to be the ultimate guide for doctors and insurance companies. It is currently in the final stages of being revised for DSM-5.

The chair of the DSM-IV Task force was Allen J Frances, MD. He was chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine and is currently Professor Emeritus  there. He has grave concerns about the new revision of DSM-IV, as he explains in this article at Psychology Today. Dec 8th 2012. Here.  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201212/mislabeling-medical-illness-mental-disorder

“…Adding to the woes of the medically ill could be one of the biggest problems caused by DSM 5. It will do this in two ways: 1) by encouraging a quick jump to the erroneous conclusion that someone’s physical symptoms are ‘all in the head’; and 2) by mislabeling as mental disorders what are really just the normal emotional reactions that people understandably have in response to a medical illness…”

 Suzy Chapman writes at this site  – Dx revision watch.  She says – ‘In the DSM-5 field trials, one in six patients with serious diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes met the criteria for an additional diagnosis of “Somatic Symptom Disorder”.  Over 25% of the “functional somatic” field trial study group (irritable bowel and chronic widespread pain) were coded with ‘SSD’.’