Sunday, December 2, 2012

Issues with the guidelines

To undersstand my disdain of the DSM - you must understand four things.  

  • What is the DSM?  Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  Every so often they revise the DSM.  When I was in college, we studied the DSM III (3), but knew that DSM IV (4) was on our heels and knew that some changes would be made.  
  • I graduated with my degree in Social Work.
  • I was diagnosed with an illness from the DSM 3 my freshmen year of college and after I read the definition for a paper I wrote on said illness my senior year I thought the psychologist should have been diagnosed with it instead!  FYI, I do not have said "disorder."   It turned out to be Lyme Disease.  
  • These are my opinions and my opinions alone.
 So I don't dislike the DSM itself.  I think there are many purposes for this statistical manuals.  I do believe that of people don't understand how to "test" for the disorders listed in the book.  So I was reading on the local news website that they are revising the DSM in 2013.  The biggest thing the article spoke on was the removal of Aspberger's as a diagnosis in the DSM and how it was going to be under the umbrella of Autism.  This is a hot button of mine to start with because I do believe that many cases of Autism are caused by untreated bacteria - um specifically the Lyme bacteria gone wild after being exposed to too many vaccines.  But I digress.  

The thing that made me hot - really  hot and the thing I had forgotten about was that in the DSM IV they had a label of "Severe Recurrent Temper Tantrums."  The name itself makes me kind of chuckle.  I have seen children with this problem - but the DSM guidelines will change the name to Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder!  Sometimes it's best just to call a spade a spade instead of a "sturdy hand shovel."


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