Welcome to DSM-5 Facts (The APA’s new PR site)

Welcome to DSM-5 Facts (The APA’s new PR site)

Post #175 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-2cm

There’s just a couple of weeks left until the deadline for receipt of stakeholder comments in the third and final review of DSM-5 proposals but still no sign of the promised “full results of the field trials” from the Task Force.

In the meantime, something else from the APA, or rather its PR firm. A spanking new DSM-5 Facts site launched this week “to correct the record” and provide the public with “a complete and accurate view of this important issue.”

http://dsmfacts.org/

Welcome to DSM-5 Facts

The American Psychiatric Association believes strongly in the work that is being done to revise the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). In preparation for the release of DSM-5, experts from psychiatry, psychology, social work, neuroscience, pediatrics and other fields have committed much of the last five years to reviewing scientific research and clinical data, analyzing the findings of extensive field trials and reviewing thousand of comments from the public.

We welcome scrutiny, not only of this process but of its results.

Regrettably, news reports and commentators alike are filling the discourse with inaccurate, biased or misinformed criticism of DSM-5. Such information undermines the important changes that are being made to the manual, and provokes unwarranted confusion and fear among the individuals and families who stand to benefit most from essential care based on the strongest available diagnostic criteria.

The APA has created this forum to ensure observers of the DSM-5 development process have the facts.

Posted below are recent news stories, articles and opinion pieces, along with our responses, to correct the record, highlight key omissions — and provide essential perspective so that the public has a complete and accurate view of this important issue….

 

On the DSM-5 Facts Issue Accuracy page you’ll find responses to recent articles and Op-Eds by Allen Frances, Paula Caplan, NYT journalist, Benedict Carey, and Cosgrove and Krimsky.

In a counterpoint to Frances’ May 12, New York Times Op-Ed piece, APA responds:

APA Responds to Allen Frances New York Times Op-Ed

…There are actually relatively few substantial changes to draft disorder criteria. Those that have been recommended are based on the scientific and clinical evidence amassed over the past 20 years and then are subject to multiple review processes within the APA.

Unfortunately there is no comment facility on this DSM-5 Fact site.

One section for which substantial changes to disorder criteria are being proposed is the Somatoform Disorders.

The Somatic Symptom Disorder Work Group proposes radical changes to this category: to rename the Somatoform Disorders section to “Somatic Symptom Disorders”; eliminate four existing DSM-IV categories: somatization disorder, hypochondriasis, pain disorder, and undifferentiated somatoform disorder; replace these discrete categories and their criteria with a single new category – “[Complex] Somatic Symptom Disorder” and apply new criteria.

“…To receive a diagnosis of complex somatic symptom disorder, patients must complain of at least one somatic symptom that is distressing and/or disruptive of their daily lives. Also, patients must have at least two [Ed: now reduced to "at least one from the B type criteria" since evaluation of the CSSD field trials] of the following emotional/cognitive/behavioral disturbances: high levels of health anxiety, disproportionate and persistent concerns about the medical seriousness of the symptom(s), and an excessive amount of time and energy devoted to the symptoms and health concerns. Finally, the symptoms and related concerns must have lasted for at least six months.

“Future research will examine the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, or treatment of complex somatic symptom disorder as there is no published research on this diagnostic category.”

“…Just as for complex somatic symptom disorder, there is no published research on the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, or treatment of simple somatic symptom disorder.”

Source: Woolfolk RL, Allen LA. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Somatoform Disorders. Standard and Innovative Strategies in Cognitive Behavior Therapy.

And from the SSD Work Group  Rationale/Validity Document  (as published on May 4, 2011 for the second public review of draft proposals but not revised or reissued for the third review):

“…The presence of CSSD complicates management of all disorders and must be addressed in the treatment plan.

“It is unclear how these changes would affect the base rate of disorders now recognized as somatoform disorders. One might conclude that the rate of diagnosis of CSSD would fall, particularly if some disorders previously diagnosed as somatoform were now diagnosed elsewhere (such as adjustment disorder). On the other hand, there are also considerable data to suggest that physicians actively avoid using the older 6 diagnoses because they find them confusing or pejorative. So, with the CSSD classification, there may be an increase in diagnosis.

“The B-type criteria are crucial for a diagnosis of CSSD. These criteria in essence reflect disturbance in thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors in conjunction with long standing distressing somatic symptoms. Whilst an exact threshold is perhaps arbitrary, considerable work suggests that the degree of functional impairment is associated with the number of such criteria. Using a threshold of 2 or more such criteria results in prevalence estimates of XXXX in the general population, XXXX in patients with known medical illnesses, and XXXX in patients who may previously have been considered to suffer from a somatoform illness. {text in development concerning impact of different thresholds for criteria B- from Francis [Creed]}…”

No data on prevalence estimates available for the second review and no data on impact of different thresholds for the B type criteria and prevalence estimates available for the third review.

I will update if a report on the field trials is released.

Commentary from Allen Frances on the launch of this new DSM-5 Fact site.

Huffington Post Blogs | Allen Frances

Public Relations Fictions Trying to Hide DSM 5 Facts

Allen Frances MD | May 31, 2012

Recently APA recruited a public relations guy from the Department of Defense to respond to my concerns that DSM 5 is way off track. He immediately went on the offensive and (in an interview for Time magazine) made the obvious PR mistake of calling me “a dangerous man.” This provided me the opportunity to pose yet again the troubling questions about DSM 5 that APA repeatedly refuses to answer. The DOD guy hasn’t surfaced since.

Instead, APA has adopted a much smoother, soft sell approach. It has hired GYMR — an expensive PR firm. GYMR actually brags in its mission statement that it can “execute strategies that include image and alliance building, public education campaigns or media relations to harness the formidable forces of Washington and produce successful results for clients.”

We now have the first fruits of GYMR’s “image building” misinformation campaign. It has launched a PR website with the claim it will provide “the facts on DSM-5 development process. Read recent news stories & opinion pieces, along with our responses, to correct the record, highlight key omissions — and provide essential perspective, so that the public has a complete and accurate view of this important issue.”

Unfortunately, the site is very short on accurate facts, very long on misleading (or just plain wrong) “image building” fiction. It is all pure PR fluff — a way to avoid answering the substantive questions that need addressing before DSM 5 is prematurely rushed to press. Let’s compare GYMR fiction versus DSM 5 fact:

GYMR Fiction: “We have extensive data from the field trials that on average there is a slight decrease in the overall rates of DSM-5 in comparison to DSM-IV disorders.”

DSM 5 Fact: This is simply wrong — APA has no such data. Except for autism, all of the DSM 5 changes will dramatically raise the rates of mental disorder and mislabel normal people as psychiatrically sick. The field trial provided no data on this crucial question because it made an unforgivable error — not including head to head prevalence comparisons between DSM IV and DSM 5. This makes it impossible to estimate how explosive will be the DSM 5 rate jumps. Moreover, false epidemics are often nurtured in the primary care settings that were untested in the DSM 5 field trials.

GYMR Fiction: The PR claim is that DSM 5 has provided a transparent process.

DSM 5 Fact: DSM 5 has been peculiarly and self-destructively secretive from its early confidentiality agreements (meant to protect intellectual property) to its current failure to make public any of the results of its ‘scientific’ reviews. Real science can never be confidential. None of this secrecy makes any sense.

GYMR Fiction: “APA takes very seriously its responsibility in developing and maintaining DSM and has devoted $25 million to the DSM-5 update process thus far.”

DSM 5 Fact: The $25 million has been a colossal waste of poorly spent money. We did DSM IV for one-fifth the price and never missed a deadline or stirred much controversy. The difference in expenditure and outcome has nothing to do with us being especially competent. It has everything to do with DSM 5 being poorly conceived and organized and spending lavishly on silly things like public relations.

GYMR Fiction: “There are several proposals in DSM-5 that aim to more accurately describe the symptoms and behaviors of disorders that typically present in children.”

DSM 5 Fact: The epidemics of excessive diagnosis in children will be muddled further by DSM 5. The threshold for ADHD is being lowered despite the tripling of rates. Temper Dyregulation (AKA DMDD) is being suggested based on just a few years of work by just one research group — despite the risk it will exacerbate the already inappropriate and dangerous use of antipsychotic drugs in kids. And DSM 5 somehow persists in not understanding how its suggestions will necessarily have a profound impact on rates of autism.

GYMR Fiction: “There are actually relatively few substantial changes to draft disorder criteria.”

DSM 5 Fact: Dead wrong — how did GYMR ever come up with this one? My guess is that the DSM 5 changes would affect the diagnosis of tens of millions of people. APA has no way of refuting this estimate since it unaccountably failed to ask the crucial prevalence question in its $3 million field trial.

GYMR Fiction: “Those that have been recommended are based on the scientific and clinical evidence amassed over the past 20 years and then are subject to multiple review processes within the APA.”

DSM 5 Fact: Most of the reviews are poorly done and none of the suggestions would stand up to the kind of impartial, independent scientific review demanded by a petition supported by 51 mental health associations. The APA internal review lacks any credibility because it is done in secret and has somehow found a way to approve DMDD and the removal of the bereavement exclusion — both of which have little or no scientific support. To be credible, APA must both make public its own scientific reviews and also contract for external and independent reviews on all the most controversial topics.

GYMR Fiction: “The APA governance attention to this is far greater than anything that ever occurred with DSM III or DSM-IV.”

DSM 5 Fact: Absurd on the face of it. If there had ever been anything resembling proper internal supervision, DSM 5 would not be in this deep mess and would not require expensive PR fig leaves to try to cover it up.

There is more, but you get the idea. DSM 5 is in a paradoxical position. Publishing profits pressure it toward premature publication, but its close to final draft is the object of almost universal opposition. On one side we have APA and its new hired gun GYMR — on the other side we have 51 professional organizations, the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, the international media and outraged segments of the public. It is far too late for any superficial “image building,” however clever, to restore DSM 5 credibility. Saving DSM 5 requires radically reforming its mistakes, not covering them up with a PR smokescreen of misinformation.

The last and only hope for a safe and credible DSM 5 now resides in the new APA leadership — it is within its power to thoroughly reform DSM 5 before it is too late.

The stakes are high. A DSM 5 at war with its users will wind up losing many of them. Disillusioned members (each of whom has involuntarily sunk almost $1,000 in this lavish but misdirected DSM 5 effort) will speed up the already rapid exodus of APA members. APA will eventually lose its monopoly on psychiatric diagnosis. Psychiatry will be unfairly discredited. And, worst of all, the patients who need our help will suffer.

DSM 5 is in such public trouble now because it heedlessly missed every prior private opportunity to self-correct. The solution is not the production of more public relations pablum. Instead, DSM 5 needs to regroup, solve its problems, and avoid racing over a cliff.

Somatic Symptom Disorder could capture millions more under mental health diagnosis

Somatic Symptom Disorder criteria could capture millions more under mental health diagnosis

Post #172 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-29B

By Suzy Chapman | Dx Revision Watch

While media and professional attention has been focused on the implications for introducing new disorders into the DSM and lowering diagnostic thresholds for existing categories, the Somatic Symptom Disorders (SSD) Work Group has been quietly redefining DSM’s Somatoform Disorders with radical proposals that could bring millions more patients under a mental health diagnosis.

The SSD Work Group is proposing to rename the Somatoform Disorders section of DSM-IV to “Somatic Symptom Disorders,” eliminate four existing  DSM-IV categories: somatization disorder, hypochondriasis, pain disorder, and undifferentiated somatoform disorder and replace them with a single new category – “Somatic Symptom Disorder.”

If approved, these proposals will license the application of a mental health diagnosis for all illnesses – whether “established general medical conditions or disorders” like diabetes, heart disease and cancer or conditions presenting with “somatic symptoms of unclear etiology” – if the clinician considers that the patient’s life has become “subsumed” with health concerns and preoccupations, or their response to distressing somatic symptoms is “excessive” or “disproportionate” or their coping strategies “maladaptive.”

 

Somatoform Disorders – disliked and dysfunctional

The SSD Work Group, under Chair, Joel E. Dimsdale, says current terminology for the Somatoform Disorders is confusing and flawed; that no-one likes these disorders and they are rarely used in clinical psychiatric practice. Primary Care physicians don’t understand the terms and patients find them demeaning and offensive [1].

The group says the terms foster mind/body dualism; that the concept of “medically unexplained” is unreliable, especially in the presence of medical illness, and cites high prevalence of presentation with medically unexplained somatic symptoms (MUS) in general medical settings – 20% in Primary Care, 40% in Specialist Care, 33-61% in Neurology; that basing a diagnosis of psychiatric disorder on MUS alone is too sensitive.

The Work Group might have considered dispensing altogether with a clutch of disliked, dysfunctional categories.

Instead, the group proposes to rebrand these disorders and assign new criteria that will capture patients with diverse illnesses, expanding application of psychiatric services, antidepressants and behavioural therapies like CBT, for the “modification of dysfunctional and maladaptive beliefs about symptoms and disease, and behavioral techniques to alter illness and sick role behaviors.”

 

Focus shifts from “medically unexplained” to “excessive thoughts, behaviors and feelings”

The Work Group’s proposal is to deemphasize “medically unexplained” as the central defining feature of this disorder group.

Instead, focus shifts to the patient’s cognitions – “excessive thoughts, behaviors and feelings” about the seriousness of distressing and persistent somatic (bodily) symptoms which may or may not accompany diagnosed general medical conditions – and the extent to which “illness preoccupation” is perceived to “dominate” or “subsume” the patient’s life.

“…[The SSD Work Group's] framework will allow a diagnosis of somatic symptom disorder in addition to a general medical condition, whether the latter is a well-recognized organic disease or a functional somatic syndrome such as irritable bowel syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome…” [2]

“…These disorders typically present first in non-psychiatric settings and somatic symptom disorders can accompany diverse general medical as well as psychiatric diagnoses. Having somatic symptoms of unclear etiology is not in itself sufficient to make this diagnosis. Some patients, for instance with irritable bowel syndrome or fibromyalgia would not necessarily qualify for a somatic symptom disorder diagnosis. Conversely, having somatic symptoms of an established disorder (e.g. diabetes) does not exclude these diagnoses if the criteria are otherwise met…” [3]

These are the most recent proposals for new category ”J 00 Somatic Symptom Disorder.”

Note that requirement for “at least two from the B type criteria” has been reduced to “at least one from the B type criteria” for the third release of draft proposals, presumably in order to accommodate merging the previously proposed “Simple Somatic Symptom Disorder” category into the CSSD criteria. No revised “Rationale/Validity” PDF document has been issued, but read brief revised ”Rationale” here.

http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevision/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=368

Criteria A, B, and C must all be fulfilled to make the diagnosis:

A. Somatic symptoms: One or more somatic symptoms that are distressing and/or result in significant disruption in daily life.

B. Excessive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors related to these somatic symptoms or associated health concerns: At least one of the following must be present.

(1) Disproportionate and persistent thoughts about the seriousness of one’s symptoms.
(2) Persistently high level of anxiety about health or symptoms
(3) Excessive time and energy devoted to these symptoms or health concerns

C. Chronicity: Although any one symptom may not be continuously present, the state of being symptomatic is persistent (typically >6 months).

Specifiers
Predominant Pain (previously pain disorder). This category is reserved for individuals presenting predominantly with pain complaints who also satisfy criteria B and C of this diagnosis. Some patients with pain may better fit other psychiatric diagnoses such as adjustment disorder or psychological factors affecting a medical condition.

Severity specifiers
Somatic Symptom Disorder is a disorder characterized by persistency, symptom burden, and excessive or maladaptive response to somatic symptoms. There is a considerable range of severity. Typically, the disorder is more severe when multiple somatic symptoms are present. In addition to fulfilling criteria A and C, the following metrics may be used to rate severity:

Mild: only 1 of the B criteria fulfilled
Moderate: 2 or more B criteria fulfilled
Severe: 2 or more B criteria fulfilled plus multiple somatic symptoms

 

How are highly subjective and difficult to measure constructs like “Disproportionate and persistent thoughts about the seriousness of one’s symptoms” and “Excessive time and energy devoted to these symptoms or health concerns” to be operationalized?

By what means would a practitioner determine how much of a patient’s time spent “searching the internet looking for data” (to quote the example of the Work Group Chair) might be considered a reasonable response to chronic health concerns and what should be coded as “excessive preoccupation” or indicate that this patient’s life has become “subsumed” or “overwhelmed” by concerns about illness and symptoms?  2 gigabytes a week?  5?  10?

At the APA’s Annual Conference, earlier this month, SSD Work Group Chair, Joel E. Dimsdale, presented an update on his group’s deliberations. During the Q & A session, a questioner expressed concern that practitioners who are not psychiatric professionals or clinicians might have some difficulty interpreting the wording of the B type criteria to differentiate between negative and positive coping strategies.

Dr Dimsdale was asked to expand on how the B type criteria would be defined and by what means patients with chronic medical conditions who devote time and energy to health care strategies to try to improve their symptoms and level of functioning would be evaluated in the field by the very wide range of DSM users and how they would be differentiated from patients considered to be spending “excessive time and energy devoted to symptoms or health concerns” or perceived as having become “absorbed” by their illness.

I am not persuaded by Dr Dimsdale’s reassurances that they will try to make this “crystal clear” in the five to six pages of manual text in the process of being drafted for this disorder chapter. Nor am I reassured that these B (1), (2) and (3) criteria can be safely applied outside the optimal conditions of field trials, in settings where practitioners may not necessarily have the time or instruction for administration of diagnostic assessment tools, and where decisions to code or not to code may hang on the arbitary and subjective perceptions of DSM end-users lacking clinical training in the use of the manual text and application of criteria.

 

Implications for a diagnosis of SSD for all patient populations

Incautious, inept application of criteria resulting in a “bolt-on” psychiatric diagnosis of a “Somatic Symptom Disorder” could have far-reaching implications for all patient populations:

• Application of highly subjective and difficult to measure criteria could potentially result in misdiagnosis with a mental health disorder, misapplication of an additional diagnosis of a mental health disorder or missed diagnoses through dismissal and failure to investigate new or worsening somatic symptoms.

• Application of an additional diagnosis of Somatic Symptom Disorder may have implications for the types of medical investigations, tests and treatments that clinicians are prepared to consider and which insurers are prepared to fund.

• Application of an additional diagnosis of Somatic Symptom Disorder may impact payment of employment, medical and disability insurance and the length of time for which insurers are prepared to pay out. It may negatively influence the perceptions of agencies involved with the assessment and provision of social care, disability adaptations and workplace accommodations.

• Patients prescribed psychotropic drugs for perceived unreasonable levels of “illness worry” or “excessive preoccupation” with symptoms may be placed at risk of iatrogenic disease.

• For multi-system diseases like Multiple Sclerosis, Behçet’s syndrome or Systemic lupus it can take several years before a diagnosis is arrived at. In the meantime, patients with chronic, multiple somatic symptoms who are still waiting for a diagnosis would be vulnerable.

• Proposals allow for the application of a diagnosis of Somatic Symptom Disorder where a parent is considered excessively concerned with a child’s symptoms [3]. Families caring for children with any chronic illness may be placed at increased risk of wrongful accusation of “over-involvement” with a child’s symptomatology.

Where a parent is perceived as encouraging maintenance of “sick role behaviour” in a child, this may provoke social services investigation or court intervention for removal of a sick child out of the home environment and into foster care or enforced in-patient “rehabilitation.” This is already happening in families with a child or young person with chronic illness, notably with Chronic fatigue syndrome or ME. It may happen more frequently with a diagnosis of a chronic childhood illness + SSD.

 

Dustbin diagnosis?

Although the Work Group is not proposing to classify Chronic fatigue syndrome, IBS and fibromyalgia, per se, within the Somatic Symptom Disorders, patients with CFS – “almost a poster child for medically unexplained symptoms as a diagnosis,” according to Dr Dimsdale’s presentation – or with fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic Lyme disease, Gulf War illness, chemical injury and chemical sensitivity may be particularly vulnerable to misapplication or misdiagnosis with a mental health disorder under these SSD criteria.

There is considerable concern that this new Somatic Symptom Disorder category will provide a “dustbin diagnosis” in which to shovel the so-called “functional somatic syndromes.”

 

15% of “diagnosed illness” and 26% of “functional somatic” captured by SSD criteria

For testing reliability of CSSD criteria, three groups were studied for the field trials:

488 healthy patients; a “diagnosed illness” group of 205 patients with cancer and malignancy (some in this group were said to have severe coronary disease) and a “functional somatic” group comprising 94 people with irritable bowel and “chronic widespread pain” (a term used synonymously with fibromyalgia).

Patients in the study were required to meet one to three cognitions: Do you often worry about the possibility that you have a serious illness? Do you have the feeling that people are not taking your illness seriously enough? Is it hard for you to forget about yourself and think about all sorts of other things?

Dr Dimsdale reports that if the response was “Yes – a lot.” it was coded.

15% of the cancer and malignancy group met SSD criteria when “one of the B type criteria” was required; if the threshold was increased to “two B type criteria” about 10% met criteria for dual-diagnosis of cancer + Somatic Symptom Disorder.

For the 94 irritable bowel and “chronic widespread pain” study group, about 26% were coded when one cognition was required; 13% coded with two cognitions required.

Has the SSD Work Group produced projections for prevalence estimates and potential increase in mental health diagnoses across the entire disease landscape?

Has the group factored for the clinical and economic burden of providing CBT for modifying perceived “dysfunctional and maladaptive beliefs about symptoms and disease, and behavioral techniques to alter illness and sick role behaviors” in patients for whom an additional diagnosis of Somatic Symptom Disorder has been coded?

 

Where’s the science?

Dr Dimsdale admits his committee has struggled from the outset with these B type criteria but feels its proposals are “a step in the right direction.”

The group reports that preliminary analysis of field trial results shows “good reliability between clinicians and good agreement between clinician rated and patient rated severity.” In the trials, CSSD achieved Kappa values of .60 (.41-.78 Confidence Interval).

Kappa reliability reflects agreement in rating by two different clinicians corrected for chance agreement – it does not mean that what they have agreed upon are valid constructs.

Radical change to the status quo needs grounding in scientifically validated constructs and a body of rigorous studies not on pet theories and papers (in some cases unpublished papers) generated by Dr Dimsdale’s work group colleagues. Where is the substantial body of independent research evidence to support the group’s proposals?*

*“...To receive a diagnosis of complex somatic symptom disorder, patients must complain of at least one somatic symptom that is distressing and/or disruptive of their daily lives. Also, patients must have at least two [Ed: now reduced to at least one since evaluation of the CSSD field trials] of the following emotional/cognitive/behavioral disturbances: high levels of health anxiety, disproportionate and persistent concerns about the medical seriousness of the symptom(s), and an excessive amount of time and energy devoted to the symptoms and health concerns. Finally, the symptoms and related concerns must have lasted for at least six months.”

“Future research will examine the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, or treatment of complex somatic symptom disorder as there is no published research on this diagnostic category.”

“…Just as for complex somatic symptom disorder, there is no published research on the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, or treatment of simple somatic symptom disorder.”

*Woolfolk RL, Allen LA. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Somatoform Disorders. Standard and Innovative Strategies in Cognitive Behavior Therapy.

 

Where are the professionals?

During the second public review, the Somatic Symptom Disorders proposals attracted more responses than almost any other category. The SSD Work Group is aware that patients, caregivers and patient advocacy organizations have considerable concerns. But are medical and allied health professionals scrutinizing these proposals?

This is the last opportunity to submit feedback. Psychiatric and non psychiatric clinicians, primary care practitioners and specialists, allied health professionals, psychologists, counselors, social workers, lawyers, patient advocacy organizations – please look very hard at these proposals, consider their safety and the implications for an additional diagnosis of an SSD for all patient illness groups and weigh in with your comments by June 15.

Criteria and rationales for proposals for the DSM-5 Somatic Symptom Disorders categories can be found here on the DSM-5 Development site.

 

References

1 Levenson JL. The Somatoform Disorders: 6 Characters in Search of an Author. Psychiatr Clin North Am. 2011 Sep;34(3):515-24.

Dimsdale JE. Medically Unexplained Symptoms: A Treacherous Foundation for Somatoform Disorders? Psychiatr Clin North Am. 2011 Sep;34(3):511-3.

2 Dimsdale J, Creed F. DSM-V Workgroup on Somatic Symptom Disorders: the proposed diagnosis of somatic symptom disorders in DSM-V to replace somatoform disorders in DSM-IV – a preliminary report. J Psychosom Res 2009;66:473–6.

3 DSM-5 Somatic Symptom Disorders Work Group Disorder Descriptions and Justification of Criteria-Somatic Symptoms documents, published May 4, 2011 for the second DSM-5 stakeholder review. (Caveat: for background to the group’s rationales only; proposals and criteria as set out in these documents have not been revised to reflect recent changes to revisions or reissued for the third review.)

     Disorder Descriptions   May 4, 2011

     Rationale/Validity Document   May 4, 2011

DSM-5 in New Scientist: Psychiatry’s new diagnostic bible is creating headaches for doctors and patients alike

DSM-5 in New Scientist: “Psychiatry’s new diagnostic bible is creating headaches for doctors and patients alike”

Post #171 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-293

A reminder that this third and final stakeholder review and comment period is scheduled to close on June 15.

 

On May 17, APA added the following statement to the home page of the DSM-5 Development site.

APA Position Statement on DSM-5 Draft Diagnostic Criteria

The official position of the APA on draft DSM-5 diagnostic criteria is that they are not to be used for clinical or billing purposes under any circumstances. They are published on the www.dsm5.org Web site to obtain feedback on these preliminary DSM-5 Task Force proposals from mental health professionals, patients, and the general public. They have not received official reviews or approval by the APA Board of Trustees and will not be available for clinical use or billing purposes until May 2013.

Two articles in this week’s online and print editions of New Scientist. 

The first report, by Peter Aldhous, quotes Allen Frances, MD, who had chaired the development of the DSM-IV; APA research director and DSM-5 Task Force Vice Chair, Darrel Regier, and Dr Dayle Jones who is tracking DSM-5 for the American Counseling Association, on DSM-5 field trial kappa results and the relegation of Attenuated psychosis syndrome and Mixed anxiety/depression to the DSM-5 appendix.

This article is behind a paywall or a subscription to the print edition.

New Scientist 19 May 2012

Page 6 print edition

THIS WEEK/MENTAL HEALTH

Psychiatry’s new diagnostic bible is creating headaches for doctors and patients alike

Online title Trials highlight worrying flaws in psychiatry ‘bible’

Peter Aldhous

Diagnosis: uncertain

HOW reliable is reliable enough?

 

The second article, “OPINION ‘Label jars, not people”, by James Davies, is accessible on the New Scientist website without payment or print edition subscription.

New Scientist 19 May 2012

Page 7 print edition

OPINION | James Davies

James Davies is a senior lecturer in social anthropology and psychotherapy at the University of Roehampton, London

‘Label jars, not people’

“LABEL jars, not people” and “stop medicalising the normal symptoms of life” read placards, as hundreds of protesters – including former patients, academics and doctors – gathered to lobby the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) annual meeting.

The demonstration aimed to highlight the harm the protesters believe psychiatry is perpetrating in the name of healing. One concern is that while psychiatric medications are more widely prescribed than almost any drugs in history, they often don’t work well and have debilitating side effects. Psychiatry also professes to respect human rights, while regularly treating people against their will. Finally, psychiatry keeps expanding its list of disorders without solid scientific justification…

Read full article

Two proposed changes dropped from DSM-5: Media round-up

Two proposed changes dropped from DSM-5: Media round-up

Post #169 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-28a

Pharma Blog

Should A Federal Agency Oversee The DSM?

Ed Silverman | May 15, 2012

…Frances proposes that a federal agency ought to assume the job of developing the DSM, although he believes a new organization would be required, one that could be housed in the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Institute of Medicine or the World Health Organization. An equivalent of the FDA is needed to “mind the store,” as he puts it.

This may raise a different set of objections, of course. To what extent, for instance, should a federal agency delve deeply into determining diagnoses and definitions? On the other hand, perhaps this would remove the concerns over self-interest and conflict that have tainted the process. What do you think?

Should a Federal Agency Run The DSM?

Psych Central

An Epidemic of Mental Disorders?

John M. Grohol, PsyD, Founder & Editor-in-Chief | May 15, 2012

Psychiatric Times

COMMENTARY

Is There Really an “Epidemic” of Psychiatric Illness in the US?

Ronald W. Pies, MD | May 1, 2012

Epidemic: (from epidēmos, prevalent : epi-, epi- + dēmos, people) “…an epidemic refers to an excessive occurrence of a disease.”–from Friis & Sellers, Epidemiology for Public Health Practice, 4th ed, 2010

If claims in the non-professional media can be believed, there is a “raging epidemic of mental illness” in the US¹, if not world-wide—and, in one version of this narrative, psychiatric treatment itself is identified as the culprit. There are several formulations of the “epidemic narrative,” depending on which of psychiatry’s critics is writing. In the most radical version, it is psychiatric medication that is fueling the supposed burgeoning of mental illness, particularly depression and schizophrenia.² More subtle variants suggest that there is a “false epidemic” of some psychiatric disorders, driven by dramatically rising rates of “false positive” diagnoses.³…

Time Healthland

Mental Health

DSM 5 Could Mean 40% of College Students Are Alcoholics

Maia Szalavitz | May 14, 2012

Most college binge drinkers and drug users don’t develop lifelong problems. But new mental-health guidelines will label too many of them addicts and alcoholics…

Side Effects at Psychology Today

DSM-5 Is Diagnosed, with a Stinging Rebuke to the APA
The regrettable history of the DSM

Christopher Lane, Ph.D. | May 14, 2013

…Among the fiercest critics quoted is Mark Rapley, a clinical psychologist at the University of East London, who puts it this way: “The APA insists that psychiatry is a science. [But] real sciences do not decide on the existence and nature of the phenomena they are dealing with via a show of hands with a vested interest and pharmaceutical industry sponsorship.” Despite commending the DSM-5 authors for “reconsidering some of their most unfortunate mistakes,” clinical psychologist Peter Kinderman of the University of Liverpool adds that the manual remains, at bottom, a bad and faulty system. “The very minor revisions recently announced do not constitute the wholesale revision that is called for,” he is quoted as saying. “It would be very unfortunate if these minor changes were to be used to suggest that the task force has listened in any meaningful way to critics….”

The New American

Critics Blast Big Psychiatry for Invented and Redefined Mental Illnesses

Alex Newman | May 13, 2012

Allen J Frances lecture

Published on 11 May 2012 by tvochannel

Psychiatrist and author, Allen J. Frances, believes that mental illnesses are being over-diagnosed. In his lecture, Diagnostic Inflation: Does Everyone Have a Mental Illness?, Dr. Frances outlines why he thinks the DSM-V will lead to millions of people being mislabeled with mental disorders. His lecture was part of Mental Health Matters, an initiative of TVO in association with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Podcast http://bit.ly/KhLuhd

57:36 mins | 19 MB

As part of Mental Health Matters Week, Big Ideas presents a lecture by Allen J Frances, MD, who had chaired the DSM-IV Task Force.

Website http://a2zn.com/?p=3507

News wire

May 6, 2012 University of Toronto

Produced in collaboration with the Center for Addiction and Mental Health

Allen J Frances lecture

Diagnostic inflation. Does everyone have a mental illness?

Big Ideas – May 12 and 13 at 5 pm ET

TVO’s lecture series will present special guest speaker Dr. Allen J. Frances, who will outline why he believes that mental illnesses are being over-diagnosed these days and why he thinks the fifth and latest version of the psychiatrist’s bible, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders will lead to millions of people being mislabeled with mental disorders.

The lecture will be recorded May 6 at University of Toronto’s Hart House.

1 Boring Old Man

the dreams of our fathers I…

1 Boring Old Man |  May 12, 2012

University Diaries

“Diagnostic Exuberance”…

Margaret Soltan | May 13, 2012

BMJ News

More psychiatrists attack plans for DSM-5

BMJ 2012; 344 doi: 10.1136/bmj.e3357 (Published 11 May 2012)

Geoff Watts

The authors of the 5th edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), due to be published in May 2013, have responded to previous criticisms of their text by announcing a further series of changes.1

But far from mollifying their critics, these concessions have served to ignite a further and still more vituperative barrage of dissent.

The list of topics under reconsideration or already subject to change can be found on the DSM-5 website.2 It includes the proposed “attenuated psychosis syndrome,” which is slated for further study, and also major depressive disorder. Here the authors have added a footnote “to …

Access to the full text of this article requires a subscription or payment

Scientific American Blogs

Why Are There No Biological Tests in Psychiatry?

By Ingrid Wickelgren | May 11, 2012 | 2

Part 5 of a 5-part series Allen Frances

New York Times

Op-Ed Contributor

Diagnosing the D.S.M.

Allen Frances | May 11, 2012

“…All mental-health disciplines need representation — not just psychiatrists but also psychologists, counselors, social workers and nurses. The broader consequences of changes should be vetted by epidemiologists, health economists and public-policy and forensic experts. Primary care doctors prescribe the majority of psychotropic medication, often carelessly, and need to contribute to the diagnostic system if they are to use it correctly. Consumers should play an important role in the review process, and field testing should occur in real life settings, not just academic centers.

Psychiatric diagnosis is simply too important to be left exclusively in the hands of psychiatrists. They will always be an essential part of the mix but should no longer be permitted to call all the shots…”

MedPage Today

DSM-5: What’s In, What’s Out

John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today |  May 10, 2012

   …The final drafts are to be completed by August, then they must be approved by a scientific review committee and the task force leadership, and finally by the APA’s governing bodies.

Kupfer said the final version has to be completed by December, when it’s set to go to the printer. Its formal release is planned for the APA’s annual meeting next May in San Francisco.

Here’s a brief overview of the changes you can expect…

WHAT’S OUT
WHAT’S IN (or STILL IN)
WHAT DIDN’T MAKE IT
WHAT TO LOOK FORWARD TO

Reuters 1

Two proposed changes dropped from psychiatric guide

Julie Steenhuysen | Reuters CHICAGO | May 9, 2012

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Two proposed psychiatric diagnoses failed to make the last round of cuts in the laborious process of revising the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — an exhaustive catalog of symptoms used by doctors to diagnose psychiatric illness.

Gone from the latest revision are “attenuated psychosis syndrome,” intended to help identify individuals at risk of full-blown psychosis, and “mixed anxiety depressive disorder”, a blend of anxiety and depression symptoms. Both performed badly on field tests and in public comments gathered by the group in its march toward the May 2013 publication deadline.

Both have been tucked into Section III of the manual — the place reserved for ideas that do not yet have enough evidence to make the cut as a full-blown diagnosis.

What has survived, despite fierce public outcry, is a change in the diagnosis of autism, which eliminates the milder diagnosis of Asperger syndrome in favor of the umbrella diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder.

But that, too, could still be altered before the final manual is published, the group says. The APA opened the final comment period for its fifth diagnostic manual known as DSM-V on May 2, and it will accumulate comments through June 15.

Dr. David Kupfer, who chairs the DSM-5 Task Force, said in a statement that the changes reflect the latest research and input from the public.

Dr. Wayne Goodman, professor and chairman of the department of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, said he’s glad the task force is responding to feedback from professionals and the public.

“I think they are trying to listen,” he said.

Goodman agrees with the decisions to drop both of the two disorders in the latest revision.

With the “mixed anxiety and depressive disorder,” he said there was a risk that it would capture a number of people who did not qualify under a diagnosis of depression or anxiety alone.

“It could lead to overdiagnosis,” Goodman said.

He said the “attenuated psychosis syndrome” diagnosis would have been useful for research purposes to help identify those at risk of psychosis, but there was a concern that it might label people who were just a bit different as mentally ill.

“The predictive value is not clear yet,” he said. “I think it’s reasonable not to codify it until we have better definition of its predictive value.”

Goodman, who worked on DSM-4, the last revision of the manual published in 1994, and is working on the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder section of the current revision of DSM-5, said the strength of the process is that it can offer a reliable way for psychiatrists across the country to identify patients with the same sorts of disorders.

The weakness, he said, is that it largely lacks biological evidence — blood tests, imaging tests and the like — that can validate these diagnoses.

“DSM-5 is a refinement of our diagnostic system, but it doesn’t add to our ability to understand the underlying illness,” he said.

Dr. Emil Coccaro, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Chicago Medicine, said typically changes in the DSM occur because of new data.

Coccaro, who is contributing to the new section in the DSM-5 on Intermittent Explosive Disorder, said there is no question that many people aren’t convinced that some of the diagnoses need to be changed, or that there need to be new ones added.

“This also happened the last time when they did DSM-4,” he said, but that was nearly 20 years ago.

“You can keep waiting but at certain point you have to fish or cut bait and actually come out with a new edition. That is what is happening now,” he said.

Comments to the manual can be submitted at www.DSM5.org

(Reporting By Julie Steenhuysen)

Reuters 2

Experts unconvinced by changes to psychiatric guide

Kate Kelland | Reuters LONDON | May 10, 2012

(Reuters) – Many psychiatrists believe a new edition of a manual designed to help diagnose mental illness should be shelved for at least a year for further revisions, despite some modifications which eliminated two controversial diagnoses.

The new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5) is due out this month, the first full revision since 1994 of the renowned handbook, which is used worldwide and determines how to interpret symptoms in order to diagnose mental illnesses.

But more than 13,000 health professionals from around the world have already signed an open letter petition (at dsm5-reform.com) calling for DSM 5 to be halted and re-thought.

“Fundamentally, it remains a bad system,” said Peter Kinderman, a professor of clinical psychology at Britain’s Liverpool University.

“The very minor revisions…do not constitute the wholesale revision that is called for,” he said in an emailed comment.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA), which produces the DSM, said on Wednesday it had decided to drop two proposed diagnoses, for “attenuated psychosis syndrome” and “mixed anxiety depressive disorder”.

The former, intended to help identify people at risk of full-blown psychosis, and the latter, which suggested a blend of anxiety and depression, had been criticized as too ill-defined.

With these and other new diagnoses such as “oppositional defiant disorder” and “apathy syndrome”, experts said the draft DSM 5 could define as mentally ill millions of healthy people – ranging from shy or defiant children to grieving relatives, to people with harmless fetishes.

“SIMPLY NOT USABLE”

Robin Murray, a professor of psychiatric research at the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London, said it was a great relief to see the changes in the draft, particularly to the attenuated psychosis diagnosis.

“It would have done a lot of harm by diverting doctors into thinking about imagined risk of psychosis (and) it would have led to unnecessary fears among patients that they were about to go mad,” he said in a statement.

But Allen Frances, emeritus professor at Duke University in the United States, said: “This is only a first small step toward desperately needed DSM 5 reform. Numerous dangerous suggestions remain.”

Frances, who chaired a committee overseeing the DSM 4, added that the DSM 5 “is simply not usable” and should be delayed for a year “to allow for independent review, to clean up its obscure writing, and for retesting”.

Diagnosis is always controversial in psychiatry, since it defines how patients will be treated based on a cluster of symptoms, many of which occur in several different types of mental illness.

Some argue that the whole approach needs to be changed to pay more attention to individual circumstances rather than slotting them into predefined categories.

“(The DSM) is wrong in principle, based as it is on redefining a whole range of understandable reactions to life circumstances as ‘illnesses’, which then become a target for toxic medications heavily promoted by the pharmaceutical industry,” said Lucy Johnstone, a consultant clinical psychologist for the Cwm Taf Health Board in Wales.

“The DSM project cannot be justified, in principle or in practice. It must be abandoned so that we can find more humane and effective ways of responding to mental distress.”

Others, however, are pushing more for the manual to be reviewed more thoroughly to allow for more accurate diagnosis and, in theory, more appropriate treatment.

One of the proposed changes that has survived in the draft DSM 5 – despite fierce public outcry – is in autism. The new edition eliminates the milder diagnosis of Asperger syndrome in favor of the umbrella diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder.

(Editing by Myra MacDonald)

New York Times

Psychiatry Manual Drafters Back Down on Diagnoses

Benedict Carey | May 8, 2012

In a rare step, doctors on a panel revising psychiatry’s influential diagnostic manual have backed away from two controversial proposals that would have expanded the number of people identified as having psychotic or depressive disorders.

The doctors dropped two diagnoses that they ultimately concluded were not supported by the evidence: “attenuated psychosis syndrome,” proposed to identify people at risk of developing psychosis, and “mixed anxiety depressive disorder,” a hybrid of the two mood problems.

They also tweaked their proposed definition of depression to allay fears that the normal sadness people experience after the loss of a loved one, a job or a marriage would be mistaken for a mental disorder.

But the panel, appointed by the American Psychiatric Association to complete the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or D.S.M., did not retreat from another widely criticized proposal, to streamline the definition of autism. Predictions by some experts that the new definition will sharply reduce the number of people given a diagnosis are off base, panel members said, citing evidence from a newly completed study.

Both the study and the newly announced reversals are being debated this week at the psychiatric association’s annual meeting in Philadelphia, where dozens of sessions were devoted to the D.S.M., the standard reference for mental disorders, which drives research, treatment and insurance decisions.

Dr. David J. Kupfer, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and the chairman of the task force making revisions, said the changes came in response mainly to field trials — real-world studies testing whether newly proposed diagnoses are reliable from one psychiatrist to the next — and also public commentary. “Our intent for disorders that require more evidence is that they be studied further, and that people work with the criteria” and refine them, Dr. Kupfer said…

CBS News

Panel suggests DSM-5 psychiatry manual drops two disorders, keeps new autism definition

Michelle Castillo | May 10, 2012

(CBS News) – A panel of doctors reviewing the much-debated Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 (DSM-5) have recommended to drop two controversial diagnoses.

The panel announced that attenuated psychosis syndrome — which identifies people at risk of developing psychosis — and mixed anxiety depressive disorder — a diagnosis which combines both anxiety and depression — should not be included in the manual’s upcoming version, the New York Times reported.

Proposed changes to autism definition may mean new diagnoses for people with Asperger’s

However, a controversial definition for autism, which will delete diagnoses for Asperger’s syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder and combine severe cases into the broader definition of autism, will remain…

MedPage Today

Autism Criteria Critics Blasted by DSM-5 Leader

John Gever, Senior Editor | May 08, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — The head of the American Psychiatric Association committee rewriting the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorders took on the panel’s critics here, accusing them of bad science.

Susan Swedo, MD, of the National Institute of Mental Health, said a review released earlier this year by Yale University researchers was seriously flawed. That review triggered a wave of headlines indicating that large numbers of autism spectrum patients could lose their diagnoses and hence access to services…

Nature

Psychosis risk syndrome excluded from DSM-5

Benefits of catching psychosis early are deemed to come at too high a price.

Amy Max | May 9, 2012

A controversial category of mental illness will not be included in the revised fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has said. Attenuated psychosis syndrome, also known as psychosis risk syndrome, had been intended mainly for young adults who have heard whispers in their heads, viewed objects as threatening or suffered other subtly psychotic symptoms…

Scientific American Blogs

Trouble at the Heart of Psychiatry’s Revised Rule Book

Ingrid Wickelgren | May 9, 2012

Part 3 in a series

Huffington Post | Allen Frances Blog

Psychiatric Mislabeling Is Bad for Your Mental Health

Allen Frances, MD | May 9, 2012

More Kappa data from DSM-5 field trials

More Kappa data from DSM-5 field trials

Post #167 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-27D

Further data from the DSM-5 field trials results have been released in a report by Deborah Brauser for Medscape Medical News.

You can read Ms Brauser’s report from the American Psychiatric Association’s annual conference here, though you may need to register for the site:

Medscape Medical News > Psychiatry

DSM-5 Field Trials Generate Mixed Results

Deborah Brauser | May 8, 2012

…Members of the task force said they hope to publish the full results “within a month.” However, the third and final public comment period for the manual opened last week and ends on June 15. Although the entire period is 6 weeks long, the public may only have 2 weeks to comment after the publication of the field trials’ findings.

…“No previous field trial had such a sophisticated design. And it has resulted in more statistically significant data for specific disorders,” said Dr. Regier.

The current DSM-5 field trials, as well as field trials for past manuals, use Kappa score as a statistical measure of criteria reliability. A Kappa score of 1.0 was considered perfect, a score of greater than .8 was considered almost perfect, a score of .6 to .8 was considered good to very good, a score of .4 to .6 was considered moderate, a score of .2 to .4 was considered fair and could be accepted, and a score of less than .2 was considered poor.

 At adult sites, schizophrenia was shown to have a pooled Kappa score of .46. However, that is down from the .76 and .81 Kappa scores found in the DSM-IV and DSM-III, respectively, and it is less than the .79 score found in the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10).

“It’s important to realize in some ways that the Kappa in the current field trial was from a totally different design…,” said Dr. Regier

Full report

This table has some of the results:

Reconstructed from data published by A Frances, DSM 5 in Distress, Psychology Today, 05.06.12

 

1 Boring Old Man has updated an earlier table here on his blog which incorporates additional data from the Medscape report: 

updated table
1 Boring Old Man | May 9, 2012

There are further, detailed commentaries from 1 boring old man on the DSM-5 field trial results and Kappa values here:

major depressive disorder κ=0.30?…     May 6, 2012

a fork in the road…     May 7, 2012

Village Consumed by Deadly Storm…     May 8, 2012

box scores and kappa…     May 8, 2012

Included in Ms Brauser’s report are data for “Complex somatic disorder”:

The field trials for the new proposed category Complex Somatic Symptom Disorder (CSSD) were held at Mayo. According to one of several tables within Ms Brauser’s report, the following data have been released for “Complex somatic disorder” [sic]:

Extract from DSM-5 Field Trials Generate Mixed Results, Deborah Brauser,  May 8, 2012

Disorder	DSM-5 (95% CI)	DSM-IV	ICD-10	DSM-III
Major neurocognitive disorder	.78 (.68 – .87)	—	.66	.91
ASD	.69 (.58 – .80)	.59 – .85	.77	-.01
PTSD	.67 (.59 – .74)	.59	.76	.55*
Child ADHD	.61 (.51 – .72)	.59	.85	.50
Complex somatic disorder	.60 (.41 – .78)	—	.45	.42

CI, confidence interval; ASD, autism spectrum disorder; PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder; ADHD, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

*From the DSM-III-R.

CSSD is a new category for DSM-5 which redefines and replaces some, but not all of the existing DSM-IVSomatoform Disorders categories under a new rubric with a new definition and criteria.

It’s a mashup of the existing categories:

Somatization Disorder
Hypochondriasis
Undifferentiated Somatoform Disorder
Pain Disorder

Following evaluation of the field trials, this new category, Complex Somatic Symptom Disorder is now proposed to drop the “Complex” descriptor, be named Somatic Symptom Disorder and absorb Simple Somatic Symptom Disorder (SSSD) – a separate diagnosis that had been introduced for the second draft, with criteria requiring fewer symptoms than for a diagnosis of CSSD and shorter chronicity.

In order to accommodate SSSD, criteria and Severity Specifiers for CSSD have been modified since the second draft. (More on this in the next post.)

Since CSSS (or SSD, as is now proposed) did not exist as a category in DSM-IV, or in ICD-10 or DSM-III, it’s unclear and unexplained by the table what data for which existing somatoform disorders have been used for Kappa comparison for this new category with data for ICD-10 and DSM-III, and how meaningful comparison between them would be.

You can find out more about how the field trials were conducted on the DSM-5 Development site.

 

Delay in publication of field trial results and no key documents in support of proposals

Stakeholders may not get to scrutinise a report on the field trials until as late as a couple of weeks before the public comment period closes.

There are no Disorder Descriptions and Rationale/Validity Propositions PDF documents that expand on category descriptions and rationales (at least not for the Somatic Symptom Disorders) and reflect revisions to proposals between the release of the second and third draft.

Yesterday, I contacted APA’s Communications and Media Office to enquire whether the Somatic Symptom Disorders work group intends to publish either a Disorder Descriptions or Rationale/Validity Propositions document, or both, to accompany this latest draft during the life of the stakeholder review period or whether these key documents are being dispensed with for the third draft.

I’ll update if and when APA Media and Communications provides clarification.

 

Related post:

Make Yourself Heard! says DSM-5′s Kupfer – but are they listening?

New APA website launched; APA Annual Meeting DSM-5 Track; Open letter opposing DSM-5 paraphilias expansion

DSM-5 Round-up:

New APA website launched; APA Annual Meeting DSM-5 Track; DSM-5 on Essential Public Radio; Open letter opposing DSM-5 paraphilias expansion; Editorial Commentary: Challenges and potential of DSM-5 and ICD-11 revisions; Commentary from Christopher Lane, Ph.D.

Post #158 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-232

New APA website launched

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) website at http://psych.org/ has been redesigned. 

According to a (no longer available) webpage on the old APA website, the APA site will relaunch soon as http://psychiatry.org/ (both URLs point to the domain).  

The APA’s DSM-5 Development site at http://dsm5.org/ has not been redesigned.

APA may be intending to update the design of the DSM-5 Development site to coincide with the release of the third draft of revisions to DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for public review and feedback.

 

APA Annual Meeting DSM-5 Track

The APA’s 2012 Annual Meeting takes place May 5-9.

Meeting Schedules and Guides can be downloaded from this page:

http://www.psychiatry.org/learn/2012-annual-meeting

This is the DSM-5 Track:

http://www.psych.org/learn/dsm-5-track-at-the-2012-apa-annual-meeting

DSM-5 Track at the 2012 APA Annual Meeting
Philadelphia, PA; May 5-9, 2012

DSM-5: Research and Development
Saturday, May 5, at 9-10:30 a.m. in Room 117 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center
Chair: David Kupfer, M.D.; Co-Chair: Darrel A. Regier, M.D., M.P.H
Presenters:
          1. Darrel A. Regier, M.D., M.P.H.
          2. Lawson Wulsin, M.D.
          3. David Goldberg, M.D.
          4. William E. Narrow, M.D., M.P.H.

Field Trial Testing of Proposed Revisions to DSM-5: Findings and Implications
Saturday, May 5, at 2-5 p.m. in Room 103B in the Pennsylvania Convention Center
Chair: David J. Kupfer, M.D. Co-Chair: Darrel A. Regier, M.D., M.P.H.
Presenters:
          1. Helena Kraemer, Ph.D.
          2. Diana E. Clarke, M.Sc., Ph.D.
          3. Darrel A. Regier, M.D., M.P.H.
          4. William E. Narrow, M.D., M.P.H.
          5. Eve Mościcki, Sc.D., M.P.H.

The Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis: Updates on Proposed Diagnostic Criteria for DSM-5 (Part I)
Sunday, May 6, at 8-11 a.m., in Room 103B at the Pennsylvania Convention Center
Chair: Darrel A. Regier, M.D., M.P.H. Co-Chair: David J. Kupfer, M.D.
Presenters:
          1. Sue Swedo, M.D.
          2. Daniel Pine, M.D.
          3. David Shaffer, M.D.
          4. Andrew Skodol, M.D.
          5. Ron Petersen, M.D., Ph.D.

The Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis: Updates on Proposed Diagnostic Criteria for DSM-5 (Part II)
Sunday, May 6, from 1-4 p.m., in Room 103B at the Pennsylvania Convention Center
Chair: David J. Kupfer, M.D.; Co-Chair: Darrel A. Regier, M.D., M.P.H.;
Presenters:
          1. Will Carpenter, M.D.
          2. Jan Fawcett, M.D.
          3. Trisha Suppes, M.D.
          4. Katharine Phillips, M.D.
          5. Matthew Freidman, M.D., Ph.D.

The Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis: Updates on Proposed Diagnostic Criteria for DSM-5 (Part III)
Monday, May 7, at 9 a.m. – 12 noon, in Room 103B at the Pennsylvania Convention Center
Chair: Darrel A. Regier, M.D., M.P.H. Co-Chair: David J. Kupfer, M.D.
Presenters:
          1. Joel Dimsdale, M.D.
          2. Tim Walsh, M.D.
          3. Charles Reynolds, M.D.
          4. Ken Zucker, Ph.D.
          5. Charles O’Brien, M.D., Ph.D.

The following is not officially included in the track but highly relevant to DSM-5 development and includes presentations from DSM-5 Work Group members.

Combat-Related PTSD: Injury or Disorder?
Monday, May 7, 2012; 9-10:30 a.m.Room 107-B, Level 1, Pennsylvania Convention Center
Chair: John M. Oldham, M.D.
Presenters:
          1. General Peter W. Chiarelli (U.S. Army, Ret)
          2. LGen the Hon. Roméo A. Dallaire, (Ret’d), Senator
          3. Robert Ursano, M.D.
          4. Matthew Friedman, M.D., Ph.D.

 

DSM-5 on Essential Public Radio

On April 10, Dr David Kupfer, who chairs the DSM-5 Task Force, and Dr Ellen Frank, DSM-5 Mood Disorders Work Group member, spoke by phone link to Paul Guggenheimer for 90.5 Essential Public Radio (Pittsburg):

http://ww:w.essentialpublicradio.org/story/2012-04-10/future-psychiatric-diagnosis-10739

The Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis

Essential Pittsburgh | April 10, 2012

The Diagnostic Statistical Manual known as the DSM, is the official classification book for mental disorders. It’s used for diagnosing and defining conditions such as autism, generalized anxiety and Alzheimer’s. The DSM is currently in the process of a major revision. Dr. David Kupfer, chair of the department of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and chair of the DSM-V Task Force, the group developing the revision, talks about the upcoming changes. And Dr. Ellen Frank, taskforce member and professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh talks about the wide reaching influence of the DSM.

Listen on site

or download 15 minute duration broadcast here [10.6 MB mp3]:

http://c295317.r17.cf1.rackcdn.com/ESSPGHTUES4-10SEGB.mp3

Although Dr Kupfer spoke about the first and second stakeholder review and comment periods that had taken place in February 2010 and May 2011 and the number of responses received, no mention was made of APA’s intention to post a third draft for public review and feeback, this Spring.

Dr Kupfer gave no indication whether a firm date for this third and final review of revised categories and criteria has been fixed by the Board of Trustees/Task Force, following completion and assessment of the DSM-5 field trials.

The only timeframe given so far by the Task Force  for the posting of the third and final public review is “no later than May 2012.” (Source: APA Answers DSM-5 Critics, Deborah Brauser for Medscape Medical News, November 9, 2011)

 

Open letter to APA President John Oldham opposing DSM-5 paraphilias expansion

In the news:

Forensic psychology, criminology, and psychology-law

Karen Franklin, Ph.D. | April 10, 201

http://forensicpsychologist.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/open-letter-opposing-dsm-5-paraphilias.html

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Dr Franklin writes:

Open letter opposing DSM-5 paraphilias expansion

As readers of this blog are aware, proposals to expand the sexual disorders in the American Psychiatric Association’s upcoming DSM-5 have generated significant controversy among forensic psychologists and psychiatrists. Now, forensic psychologists are banding together to urge APA President John Oldham to reject the proposed diagnoses of pedohebephilia, paraphilic coercive disorder and hypersexual disorder. The text of an open letter drafted by Richard Wollert, an Oregon psychologist with extensive experience in sex offender treatment and evaluation, follows. If, after reading it, you would like to become a signator, just click on the indicated link, and provide Dr. Wollert with your name and professional credentials. Don’t delay, as I understand that this important letter is being submitted very soon.

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL OPEN LETTER and instructions for professonals who wish to add their name to Dr Richard Wollert’s letter

 

Editorial Commentary: Challenges and potential of DSM-5 and ICD-11 revisions

Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Editorial Commentary: Challenges and potential of DSM-5 and ICD-11 revisions

Issue

Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
Volume 53, Issue 5, pages 449–453, May 2012

James F. Leckman¹,², Daniel S. Pine³

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012.02548.x/full

       http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012.02548.x/pdf

Article first published online: 4 APR 2012

DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012.02548.x

© 2012 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry © 2012 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health

 

Commentary on “Editorial Commentary: Challenges and potential of DSM-5 and ICD-11 revisions” by Christopher Lane, Ph.D.

Is Psychiatric Accuracy a Challenge? Producing accurate psychiatric diagnoses

Christopher Lane, Ph.D. in Side Effects, Psychology Today | April 9, 2012

Conflicts of interest and DSM-5: the media reaction; APA Rebuts Study on Autism and Christopher Lane On What’s Wrong With Modern Psychiatry

Conflicts of interest and DSM-5: the media reaction; APA Rebuts Study on Autism and Christopher Lane On What’s Wrong With Modern Psychiatry

Post #154 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-20T

Links for full text, PDF and further coverage following publication of the PloS Essay by Cosgrove and Krimsky:

March 17, 2012: DSM-5 controversies, Cosgrove and Krimsky on potential COIs, counter statement from APA’s John Oldham and APA May Annual Meeting preliminary program

March 14, 2012: Cosgrove, Sheldon: 69% of DSM-5 task force members report pharmaceutical industry ties – review identifies potential COIs

PLoS Blogs

Speaking of Medicine

Conflicts of interest and DSM-5: the media reaction

Clare Weaver | March 26, 2012

…Last week PLoS Medicine published an analysis by Lisa Cosgrove and Sheldon Krimsky, who examined the disclosure policy and the panel members’ conflicts of interest, and call for the APA to make changes to increase transparency before the manual’s publication.

Within three days of publication the paper had been viewed over 4000 times, and several major media outlets reported on the authors’ findings and the wider issues they relate to…

Read full post

Psychiatric Times

American Psychiatric Association Press Release No. 12-15: March 27, 2012

      Commentary Takes Issue with Criticism of New Autism Definition

APA Rebuts Study on Autism

DSM-5 Experts Call Study Flawed

Laurie Martin, Web Editor | 30 March 2012

In a recent commentary, the DSM-5 Neurodevelopmental Disorders Work Group responded to a study that challenges the proposed DSM-5 diagnostic criteria on autism spectrum disorder (ASD).1 The commentary, published in the April issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), takes issue with the study by James McPartland and colleagues,2 and addresses what it deems “serious methodological flaws.”

The Work Group refutes the authors’ conclusions that the “Proposed DSM-5 criteria could substantially alter the composition of the autism spectrum. Revised criteria improve specificity but exclude a substantial portion of cognitively.” Dr McPartland and colleagues’ research study, titled Sensitivity and Specificity of Proposed DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder, also states, “a more stringent diagnostic rubric holds significant public health ramifications regarding service eligibility and compatibility of historical and future research.” The study in question is also published in the April issue of JAACAP…

Read full article by Laurie Martin, Web Editor

Related material: American Psychiatric Association Press Release No. 12-03

      DSM-5 Proposed Criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder Designed to Provide More Accurate Diagnosis and Treatment  January 20, 2012

The Sun Interview

March 2012

Side Effects May Include

Christopher Lane On What’s Wrong With Modern Psychiatry

by Arnie Cooper
The complete text of this selection is available in our print edition.

Six years ago Lane began to hear from his students at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, that many of them were on psychiatric drugs. They would come to his office to ask for extensions on their assignments, explaining that they were suffering from anxiety or depression but were on medication for it. He had just published Hatred and Civility: The Antisocial Life in Victorian England, for which he had studied the transition from Victorian psychiatry, out of which psychoanalysis was born, to contemporary psychiatry, with its intense focus on biomedicine and pharmacology. He was already skeptical about the emergence in 1980 of dozens of new mental disorders in the DSM-III, the third edition of the manual. Among these new ailments were the curious-sounding “social phobia” and “avoidant personality disorder.” Lane wanted to know how and why those new disorders had been approved for inclusion and whether they were really bona fide illnesses…

Read Arnie Cooper interview with Christopher Lane

DSM-5 controversies, Cosgrove-Krimsky on potential COIs, counter statement from APA’s John Oldham and APA May Annual Meeting preliminary program

DSM-5 controversies, Cosgrove and Krimsky on potential COIs, counter statement from APA’s John Oldham and APA May Annual Meeting preliminary program

Post #152 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-20e

Update @ March 20, 2012

Medscape Medical News > Psychiatry

APA Criticized Over DSM-5 Panel Members’ Industry Ties

Megan Brooks | March 20, 2012

March 20, 2012 — Two researchers have raised concerns that the upcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) has been unduly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, owing to financial conflicts of interest (FCOI) among DSM-5 panel members.

In an essay published in the March issue of PLoS Medicine, Lisa Cosgrove, PhD, from the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Sheldon Krimsky, PhD, from the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University, Boston, say the FCOI disclosure policy does not go far enough and has not been accompanied by a reduction in the conflicts of interest of DSM-5 panel members.

However, John M. Oldham, MD, President of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), “strongly” disagrees.

Read on

At DSM5 in Distress, Allen Frances, MD, who had chaired the task force for DSM-IV, writes:

According to this week’s Time magazine, the American Psychiatric Association has just recruited a new public relations spokesman  who previously worked at the Department of Defense. This is an appropriate choice for an association that substitutes a fortress mentality and  warrior bluster for substantive discussion. The article quotes him as saying: “Frances is a ‘dangerous’ man trying to undermine an earnest academic endeavor.”

Frances asks:

Am I A Dangerous Man?

No, but I do raise twelve dangerous questions

Allen Frances, M.D. | March 16, 2012

published in response to:

TIME Magazine

What Counts As Crazy?

John Cloud | Online March 14, 2012

Print edition | March 19, 2012

…The mind, in our modern conception, is an array of circuits we can manipulate with chemicals to ease, if not cure, depression, anxiety and other disorders. Drugs like Prozac have transformed how we respond to mental illness. But while this revolution has reshaped treatments, it hasn’t done much to help us diagnose what’s wrong to begin with. Instead of ordering lab tests, psychiatrists usually have to size up people using subjective descriptions of the healthy vs. the afflicted.

…Which is why the revision of a single book is roiling the world of mental health, pitting psychiatrists against one another in bitter…

Full article available to subscribers

Pharmalot

Should APA Purge DSM Panels With Pharma Ties?

Ed Silverman | March 15, 2012

As publication of the next version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, also known as DSM-5, approaches in May 2013, the so-called bible of psychiatrists is generating increasing scrutiny. The reason, of course, is that classification of various illnesses can help psychiatrists determine how to pursue treatment, which can involve prescribing medications that can ring registers for drugmakers…

Read on

Statement from John M. Oldham, M.D.

Mr Silverman’s report quotes from a statement issued on March 15 by John M. Oldham, M.D., President of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), in response to the Cosgrove and Krimsky PLoS Medicine Essay, “A Comparison of DSM-IV and DSM-5 Panel Members’ Financial Associations with Industry: A Pernicious Problem Persists.”

Read Dr Oldham’s statement here in PDF format:

    PDF statement John M Oldham, M.D., March 15, 2012

or full text below:

March 15, 2012

Statement for John M. Oldham, M.D., President of the American Psychiatric Association:

In their article, “A Comparison of DSM-IV and DSM-5 Panel Members’ Financial Associations with Industry: A Pernicious Problem Persists,” which appeared in the March issue of the journal Public Library of Science, and which ABC and other news outlets quoted, Cosgrove and Krimsky question the work of DSM-5’s volunteer Task Force and Work Group members because of publicly disclosed relationships with the pharmaceutical industry. Although we appreciate that Cosgrove and Krimsky acknowledge the commitment the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has already made to reducing potential financial conflicts of interest, we strongly disagree with their analysis and presentation of APA’s publicly available disclosure documents. Specifically, the Cosgrove-Krimsky article does not take into account the level to which DSM-5 Task Force and Work Group members have minimized or divested themselves from relationships with the pharmaceutical industry.

In 2012, 72 percent of the 153 members report no relationships with the pharmaceutical industry during the previous year. The scope of the relationships reported by the other 28 percent of member varies:

• 12 percent reported grant support only, including funding or receipt of medications for clinical trial research;

• 10 percent reported consultations including advice on the development of new compounds to improve treatments; and

• 7 percent reported receiving honoraria.

Additionally, since there were no disclosure requirements for journals, symposia or the DSM-IV Task Force at the time of the 1994 release of DSM-IV, Cosgrove and Krimsky’s comparison of DSM-IV and DSM-5 Task Force and Work Group members is not valid. In assembling the DSM-5’s Task Force and Work Groups, the APA’s Board of Trustees developed an extensive process of written disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. These disclosures are required of all professionals who participate in the development of DSM-5. An independent APA committee reviews these disclosure documents, which are updated annually or whenever a member’s financial interests change. Individuals are only permitted to serve on a work group or the Task Force if they are judged to have no significant financial interests.

The Board of Trustees’ guiding principles and disclosure policies for DSM panel members require annual disclosure of any competing interests or potentially conflicting relationships with entities that have an interest in psychiatric diagnoses and treatments. In addition, all Task Force and Work Group members agreed that, starting in 2007 and continuing for the duration of their work on DSM-5, each member’s total annual income derived from industry sources would not exceed $10,000 in any calendar year. This standard is more stringent than requirements for employees at the National Institutes of Health and for members of advisory committees for the Food and Drug Administration. And since their participation in DSM-5 began, many Task Force members have gone to greater lengths by terminating many of their industry relationships.

Potential financial conflicts of interest are serious concerns that merit careful, ongoing monitoring. The APA remains committed to reducing potential bias and conflicts of interest through our stringent guidelines.

A number of stories followed the publication of the Cosgrove and Krimsky PLoS Medicine Essay. Links for selected reports in this March 14 Dx Revision Watch post:

Cosgrove, Sheldon: 69% of DSM-5 task force members report pharmaceutical industry ties – review identifies potential COIs

Full text of Essay available here on PLoS site under “Open-access”:

A Comparison of DSM-IV and DSM-5 Panel Members’ Financial Associations with Industry: A Pernicious Problem Persists

Or open     PDF here

Long article from Sandra G. Boodman for Washington Post

Antipsychotic drugs grow more popular for patients without mental illness

Sandra G. Boodman | March 12, 2012

Adriane Fugh-Berman was stunned by the question: Two graduate students who had no symptoms of mental illness wondered if she thought they should take a powerful schizophrenia drug each had been prescribed to treat insomnia.

“It’s a total outrage,” said Fugh-Berman, a physician who is an associate professor of pharmacology at Georgetown University. “These kids needed some basic sleep [advice], like reducing their intake of caffeine and alcohol, not a highly sedating drug.”

Those Georgetown students exemplify a trend that alarms medical experts, policymakers and patient advocates: the skyrocketing increase in the off-label use of an expensive class of drugs called atypical antipsychotics. Until the past decade these 11 drugs, most approved in the 1990s, had been reserved for the approximately 3 percent of Americans with the most disabling mental illnesses, chiefly schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; more recently a few have been approved to treat severe depression.

But these days atypical antipsychotics — the most popular are Seroquel, Zyprexa and Abilify — are being prescribed by psychiatrists and primary-care doctors to treat a panoply of conditions for which they have not been approved, including anxiety, attention-deficit disorder, sleep difficulties, behavioral problems in toddlers and dementia. These new drugs account for more than 90 percent of the market and have eclipsed an older generation of antipsychotics. Two recent reports have found that youths in foster care, some less than a year old, are taking more psychotropic drugs than other children, including those with the severest forms of mental illness…

Read on

Financial Times

New autism diagnostic criteria may encourage symptomatic approach to drug use

Anusha Kambhampaty in New York, Abigail Moss in London | March 15, 2012

MedPage Today

DSM-5 Critics Pump Up the Volume

John Gever, Senior Editor | February 29, 2012

…In a conversation with MedPage Today, APA President John Oldham, MD, and DSM-5 task force chairman David Kupfer, MD, defended their handling of the revision and argued that many of the criticisms were off-base.

For starters, Kupfer said, the proposed revisions were still open to change or abandonment. The DSM-5 will assume its near-final form in June or July, he said – meaning that the APA’s annual meeting in May would provide another forum to debate the changes.

“[The proposals] are still open to revision,” he said. “The door is still very much open…”

[Ed: A third and final stakeholder review and comment period is anticipated in "May at the latest."  Benedict Carey reported for New York Times, January 19, "The revisions are about 90 percent complete and will be final by December, according to Dr. David J. Kupfer...chairman of the task force making the revisions."]

Read full Medpage Today article

Psychiatric News Volume 47, Number 4, February 17, 2012 publishes the preliminary schedule for the APA’s May annual meeting:

    PDF

APA’S 165TH ANNUAL MEETING, PHILADELPHIA, MAY 5-9, 2012
Preliminary Schedule

Cosgrove, Sheldon: 69% of DSM-5 task force members report pharmaceutical industry ties

Cosgrove, Sheldon: 69% of DSM-5 task force members report pharmaceutical industry ties – review identifies potential COIs

Post #151 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-1ZM

“Board of Trustee Principles” here:
http://www.dsm5.org/about/Pages/BoardofTrusteePrinciples.aspx

“DSM-V Task Force and Work Group Acceptance Form” here:
Approved by BOT July2006 Amended and Approved by BOT October 2007
http://www.dsm5.org/about/Documents/DSM%20Member%20Acceptance%20Form.pdf

DSM-5 Task Force members’ bios and disclosures here: http://www.dsm5.org/MeetUs/Pages/TaskForceMembers.aspx

DSM-5 Work Group members’ bios and disclosures here: http://www.dsm5.org/MeetUs/Pages/WorkGroupMembers.aspx

(All 13 DSM-5 Work Group Chairs are members of the Task Force, which totals 29 members.)

A number of stories following publication of PLoS Medicine Essay by Linda Cosgrove and Sheldon Krimsky:

A Comparison of DSM-IV and DSM-5 Panel Members’ Financial Associations with Industry: A Pernicious Problem Persists

Full text available on PLoS site under “Open-access”

Or open PDF here

Citation: Cosgrove L, Krimsky S (2012) A Comparison of DSM-IV and DSM-5 Panel Members’ Financial Associations with Industry: A Pernicious Problem Persists. PLoS Med 9(3): e1001190. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001190

Published: March 13, 2012

 

ABC News

DSM-5 Criticized for Financial Conflicts of Interest

Katie Moisse | March 13, 2012

Controversy continues to swell around the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, better known as DSM-5. A new study suggests the 900-page bible of mental health, scheduled for publication in May 2013, is ripe with financial conflicts of interest.

The manual, published by the American Psychiatric Association, details the diagnostic criteria for each and every psychiatric disorder, many of which have pharmacological treatments. After the 1994 release of DSM-4, the APA instituted a policy requiring expert advisors to disclose drug industry ties. But the move toward transparency did little to cut down on conflicts, with nearly 70 percent of DSM-5 task force members reporting financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies – up from 57 percent for DSM-4.

“Organizations like the APA have embraced transparency too quickly as the solution,” said Lisa Cosgrove, associate professor of clinical psychology at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and lead author of the study published today in the journal PLoS Medicine. “Our data show that transparency has not changed the dynamic.”…

Read on

---

New Scientist

Many authors of psychiatry bible have industry ties

Peter Aldhous | March 13, 2012

Just as many authors of the new psychiatry “bible” are tied to the drugs industry as those who worked on the previous version, a study has found, despite new transparency rules…

…”Transparency alone can’t mitigate bias,” says Lisa Cosgrove Havard University of Harvard University, who along with Sheldon Krimsky of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, analysed the financial disclosures of 141 members of the “work groups” drafting the manual. They found that just as many contributors – 57 per cent – had links to industry as were found in a previous study of the authors of DSM-IV and an interim revision, published in 1994 and 2000 respectively.

Cosgrove also points out that the $10,000-per-year limit on payments excludes research grants. “Nothing has really changed,” she says…

Read on

Journal reference: PLoS Medicine, DOI: 10.1371/ journal.pmed.1001190

Please note that the petition launched in October by an ad hoc committee of the Society for Humanistic Psychology (Division 32 of the American Psychological Association) referred to in this article is intended for signing by mental health professionals.

---

Nature | News

Industry ties remain rife on panels for psychiatry manual
Review identifies potential conflicts of interest among those drawing up DSM-5.

Heidi Ledford | March 13, 2012

Potential conflicts of interest among the physicians charged with revising a key psychiatric manual have not declined despite changes to the rules on disclosing ties to industry, says a study published today1.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is used to diagnose patients, shape research projects and guide health-insurance claims. The fifth edition of the manual, DSM-5, currently being prepared by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in Arlington, Virginia, is scheduled for publication in May 2013. But some of the suggested revisions are proving to be contentious. In particular, some psychiatrists worry that the broader diagnostic criteria for selected psychiatric conditions would encroach into the realm of the normal, thereby pathologizing ordinary behaviour and expanding the market for drug prescriptions (see ‘Diagnostics tome comes under fire’ and ‘Mental health guide accused of overreach’)…

Read on

---

From TIME Magazine:

TIME Magazine

What Counts As Crazy?

John Cloud | Online March 14, 2012

Print edition | March 19, 2012

…The mind, in our modern conception, is an array of circuits we can manipulate with chemicals to ease, if not cure, depression, anxiety and other disorders. Drugs like Prozac have transformed how we respond to mental illness. But while this revolution has reshaped treatments, it hasn’t done much to help us diagnose what’s wrong to begin with. Instead of ordering lab tests, psychiatrists usually have to size up people using subjective descriptions of the healthy vs. the afflicted.

…Which is why the revision of a single book is roiling the world of mental health, pitting psychiatrists against one another in bitter…

Full article available to subscribers

---

From last week’s New Scientist:

New Scientist

Should we rewrite the autism rule book?

Fred Volkmar and Francesca Happé | March 7, 2012
Magazine issue 2855.

AN EFFORT is under way to update the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic guide – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). In particular, changes suggested for diagnosis of autism are the focus of much debate.

There are clear reasons for changing and tweaking DSM categories and criteria in the light of new research, but the impact in this case is likely to be major…

Full article available to subscribers

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Human Givens

International society removes ‘schizophrenia’ from its title

March 13, 2012

A statement from the ISPS today reveals that the society has voted to remove the word ‘schizophrenia’ from its title due to the term being deemed ‘unscientific and stigmatizing’:

“Members of the International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and Other Psychoses ( www.isps.org ) have just voted, by an overwhelming majority, to change the society’s name to the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis. The new logo and letterhead are to be adopted by the end of March…”

Read on

Part Two: William Heisel: Slap: American Psychiatric Association Targets One DSM5 Critic, Ignores Others

Part Two: William Heisel: Slap: American Psychiatric Association Targets One DSM5 Critic, Ignores Others

Post #150 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-1Z6

Update @ March 1, 2012

Additional commentary:

Neurobonkers, March 1, 2012

APA Shut Down DSM-5 Blogger

—————-

Knight Science Journal Tracker, Paul Raeburn, March 1, 2012

Psychiatrists issue legal threat, silencing blogger critical of diagnostic manual.

also

National Association of Science Writers

—————-

On Monday, investigative health reporter, William Heisel, published Part One of his report on the two “cease and desist” letters served to me on December 22, on behalf of the publishing arm of the American Psychiatric Association.

You can view these letters and correspondence here:

    APA correspondence

 

Read Part One of William Heisel’s report here:

Slap: American Psychiatric Association Pressures Brit DSM5 Blogger Suzy Chapman

 

Today, William Heisel continues the story:

Reporting on Health

William Heisel’s Antidote Investigating Untold Health Stories

William Heisel | February 29, 2012

Slap: American Psychiatric Association Targets One DSM5 Critic, Ignores Others

From the way the American Psychiatric Association threatened UK writer Suzy Chapman, one would think APA is fighting legal battles everywhere to protect its trademarks.

But Chapman appears to be in an elite category. Antidote wrote Monday about how APA forced Chapman to change the name and URL of her DSM-5 and ICD-11 Watch site, saying it infringed on APA’s trademark for its main guidebook, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

But similar sites and uses of APA trademarks abound. Why hasn’t the APA gone after them?

Read on

 

Related posts:

Earlier commentaries:

Media coverage: American Psychiatric Association (APA) ”cease and desist” v DSM-5 Watch website; Legal information and resources for bloggers and site owners

Is DSM 5 A Public Trust Or An APA Cash Cow? Commercialism And Censorship Trump Concern For Quality by Allen Frances APA forces domain name change for DSM-5 and ICD-11 Watch site

Pity the poor American Psychiatric Association, Parts 1 and 2: Gary Greenberg

DSM 5 Censorship Fails: Support From Professionals and Patients Saves Free Speech by Allen Frances