Quote:DSM V codes identify conditions other than a disease or injury and are also used to report significant factors that may influence present or future care. DSM V codes are not necessarily a primary diagnosis. DSM V codes are very important for medical billing and managed care operations as they have a strong influence on covered treatments.

http://www.psyweb.com/DSM_IV/jsp/DSM_VCodes.jsp

I don't believe "disorder" is a part of the label for V15.81.

Whilst I generally disagree with the OP (I think its a dangerous and poorly informed simplification of a very complex issue), I can't let the oppertunity pass by to mention my favourite scientific experiment ever.

The rosenhan experiment

This guy is a fucking Boss. He arranged to have a number of perfectly sane people, including psychiatric doctors, students and others admitted to mental hospitals with the brief that after their initial report of symptoms, they could be as sane as they liked and should get themselves discharged as soon as possible.

One of them took 52 days. And only then got discharged when he admitted that he HAD been ill but was now better.

The experiment sought to prove that the profession could not know when people were well.

This outraged one institution who said such errors would never be made by them. So Rosenhan issued the challenge that he would send a number of imposters over a 3 month period and see if the medics could catch them out.

Over the next 3 months the hospital identified 41 people it believed to be acting, and 42 suspect. In fact Rosenhan hadn't sent anyone at all.

This, he said, showed they could not know when people were sick!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnHvK6lJOO8

A fucking BOSS!

---

Oh and as an added fuck you, the people who DID detect the imposters were not in fact ill?

The other patients!!

(July 10, 2014 at 7:03 pm)Jacob(smooth) Wrote: The experiment sought to prove that the profession could not know when people were well.
[...]
This, he said, showed they could not know when people were sick!

Yep. My impression (as a patient, not a doctor) is that the diagnostic process is heavily dependent on what the patient reports.

(July 7, 2014 at 5:32 pm)Rayaan Wrote: These days, many people in America who have mental health issues go to psychiatrists to complain about their problems. But after they go there, every little problem they have gets labelled and turned into a mental disorder.

Psychiatrists certainly have the go-ahead to prescribe drugs to alleviate the symptoms that chemical imbalances can cause, but I doubt they label everything as a mental disorder, especially if its an issue that can be talked through. Sometimes the best medication for some people is behavioral changes.

Quote:Even someone who has experienced a moderate level of stress and/or depression may get written off as having an "illness" in his brain that needs to be treated with psychotropic drugging.

Misdiagnoses happen all the time, very true. Stress is subjective to the person experiencing it, and a psychiatrists can only be as objective as what they observe of their patients.

Quote:Psychiatrists oftentimes tell their patients something along the lines of "What you have is basically a chemical imbalance in your brain that's causing you to feel the way you feel. But the good news is that there is a pill that can fix that, and you should take it," without conducting any kind of lab or physical tests on the patients to prove that there really is a "chemical imbalance" in the brain. Therefore it is not unreasonable to conclude that modern psychiatry, shamefully, lacks scientific validity.

I'm not certain I would go so far as to label this practice as shameful. Plenty of people truly do suffer from such actual chemical imbalances which can only be treated by a practicing psychiatrist.

Quote:So the question is (and it's rhetorical), why should any person who has a sound reasoning capacity, and is aware of these facts, ever take such a risk in an attempt to cure himself?

Certainly there are weak areas in this field, but the benefits by far outweigh the risks, and those risks are ones that society is subjected to otherwise.

Quote:It doesn't require much investigation to realize that the whole psychiatry industry today is rather a nicely packaged fraud, a deception, making people think that taking these drugs will "help" them, even though it actually hurts them more.

That's an odd conclusion to draw seeing as the science behind these drugs is real.

Quote:They've been able to convince just enough people to take drugs like this, with duplicitous commercials and selective suppression of facts, which as a result of they're amassing billions of dollars every year.

So are all the drugs bad then?

Quote:And that's pretty much the number one motivation behind selling these psychiatric drugs - i.e. money.

If I could legitimately help someone and my assistance has science to back me up, then I'd want to make some money off of that too. There's no point in working for free after all. People have to eat, but farmers don't just give away their crops for free, right?

Anyway, to say that the entire enterprise might be unnecessary would be to many individuals' detriment. Schizophrenia is real, and it's treatable. So is bi-polar disorder, as well as clinical depression. Psychiatrists are, it would seem, the only viable source of the drugs that suppress these issues. Without psychiatrists, our mental institutes would be overflowing; without pharmaceutical companies, there would be no research into newer, better drugs. Can you give evidence of a real conspiracy, or are we just going to have to take your word on this? Also, if what you're saying is absolutely true, do you have an alternative for us, or are mentally ill/unstable individuals simply screwed, for lack of a better term?

Quote:Here are two documentaries that provide more exposure of some of the slimy, double-dealing tactics of psychiatry and how it has pulled people into its tangled web of lies while acting under the guise of being the most ardent savior of mental health:

Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging

The DSM: Psychiatry's Deadliest Scam

There are documentaries about how Global Warming is a scam, how GMOs are a health risk, and how the WTC was a cover-up, and all of them are rife with interviews and testimonials from credentialed experts in their fields. Do we give these theories credence as well?

Quote:I must add the following point also: I don't deny that there are good psychiatric programs out there that are indeed helpful to some extent (the ones which take a more humanistic approach, such as talk therapy and counseling).

Oh, good. We can breathe easy now.

Quote:But, on a larger scale, psychiatry seems be more destructive than helpful, especially when drugs are involved.

"Seems to be" is a phrase with a lot of wiggle room. At least this shows that you're honest about not having all the facts (unless I'm reading into that wrong).

Quote:And, unfortunately, with the rise of pharmaceutical and insurance industries, the practice of psychiatry has considerably shifted from talk therapy to drug therapy.

Both have their place in psychiatry, as I mentioned earlier.

Quote:I'll consider all the disagreements/criticisms/feedback as best as I can.

I remember you posting some time ago something about 9/11 being a conspiracy, so I have my doubts about this statement, sure. I've really only posed questions to you, not in an attempt to prove you wrong, but to see if you've thought of all the issues surrounding this.

(July 10, 2014 at 6:42 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: This is, as far as I'm aware, *not* how the law is interpreted. "Immanent risk of injuring self or others" refers to overt acts (e.g. suicide attempt and/or violence against others).

The imminent risk to self or others is not actually limited to overt acts only. According to something known as a "need for treatment" standard, violence and suicide attempts are not amongst the actions that are necessary in order for people to be categorized as being a risk to themselves (or others).

"Typically, a need-for-treatment standard requires a finding that the person’s mental illness prevents him from seeking help on a voluntary basis and, if not treated, will cause him severe suffering and harm his health. Need-for-treatment laws make commitment available to the person who suffers greatly in the grip of severe mental illness, even if he manages to meet his basic survival needs and exhibits no violent or suicidal tendencies." - TAC report, 2014

Furthermore, this "need for treatment" standard for psychiatric patients is so cunningly flexible in some states that it regards non-compliance with treatment as a predictive indicator that the patients may become "dangerous to self or others." They can be deemed "dangerous" simply for not complying with treatment. A good example of such an interpretation of the standard is Idaho's law, which applies to any mentally ill person who:

"lacks insight into his need for treatment and is unable or unwilling to comply with treatment and, based on his psychiatric history, clinical observation or other clinical evidence, if he does not receive and comply with treatment, there is a substantial risk he will continue to physically, emotionally or mentally deteriorate to the point that the person will, in the reasonably near future, inflict physical harm on himself or another person."

Therefore anyone can be involuntarily committed if they meet the "need-for-treatment"standard. For emphasis: Not will, but can be committed, under the law.

(July 10, 2014 at 6:42 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Back in the 1950's, you might be on to something - getting an involuntary commitment back then was pretty easy. Not so today.

I agree that it was easier back then, but it happens today also. A minority of psychiatric patients do get involuntarily admitted and forced to take drugs against their will.

Are patients in psych hospitals forced to take medications?

Involuntary Psychiatric Interventions: A Breach of the Hippocratic Oath?

Coercion in Psychiatric Care: Global and Indian Perspective

(July 10, 2014 at 6:45 pm)rasetsu Wrote: I don't believe "disorder" is a part of the label for V15.81.

It might not be.

But either way, the dodgy part is that the "Noncompliance with Treatment" label can be used as a coercive technique for getting patients treated against their will. It only furthers the stifling of their right to personal autonomy and self-determination. People with mental illnesses who are unwilling to comply with medical treatment - even if they are not presently violent nor suicidal in any way - may still be classified as belonging in the predicted "risk to self or others" population, and thereby they can be pushed into the "need-for-treatment" standard because of being a predicted risk to themselves in the "reasonably near future."

Wait ... Are psychiatrists the new psychics or something?

(July 10, 2014 at 6:07 pm)Excult Wrote: Scientology cult propaganda through one of it's front groups, citizens commission on human rights. Their cultist agenda is to discredit mental health supplanting it with l ron hubbard's scientology.

http://www.xenu.net/archive/infopack/12.htm

It's not really a cultist agenda. The points in the OP about psychiatry resonate thoroughly with the views of some of the most outstanding psychiatrists, authors, and experts on the subject, and I've already given a substantial amount of sources pointing to them in this thread so far. You should click on those links and read them if you haven't done that. And then if you think that any of the information you read is inaccurate or fabricated, then simply prove it.


@ Bad Writer: I'm not saying that all drugs are bad, nor that the entire field of psychiatry is bullshit. My criticisms were more about how psychiatry is practiced in the US specifically. It might be different in other places. But here in America there is too much incentive for psychiatrists to prescribe drugs as compared to counselling people on how to change their habits, their lifestyle, teaching them coping mechanisms, and other practical ways of dealing with their problems. Psychiatry should take a more balanced and holistic treatment rather than having such a heavy reliance on medications.

As I've said already, I don't deny that there are good psychiatrists and good psychiatric programs out there, but on the whole psychiatry is getting more and more overeclipsed by the pharmaceutical industry which as a result is causing psychiatrists to feel more nonchalant in just throwing some pills at their patients. Research on the current system of psychiatry has shown that it has an unrelenting ability to exploit people by selling drugs to them, although it can help them also.

I also posted new studies which concede that antidepressants cause more harm than good. Then, you disagreed with that, but you haven't presented anything convincing to support your position. Where is the evidence that the benefits of antidepressants "by far outweigh the risks"? I gave several well-researched sources to back up what I said here, and you can't discredit them simply with your own words. First read, research, provide the evidence, and then connect the dots.

And here is a shocking lecture on the mislabelling and over-diagnosis of mental disorders by Allen J. Frances, the chair of the DSM-5 task force. He talks about how millions of people have been overdiagnosed as a result of the unnecessary medicalization of normal behaviors, and how the DSM has been, and will continue to be, a vital instrument behind such an alarming rate of diagnostic inflation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuCwVnzSjWA


Frances is also the author of "Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life."

http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Normal-Out-...0062229257

If I'm reading it correctly, Wikipedia says that Dr. Frances was chair of the DSM-IV task force, and an outside critic of DSM-V.

(July 16, 2014 at 1:06 pm)rasetsu Wrote: If I'm reading it correctly, Wikipedia says that Dr. Frances was chair of the DSM-IV task force, and an outside critic of DSM-V.

Yeah, you're right. Thanks for pointing that out.

Those stinkin' roman numerals messed me up ... I was thinking that DSM-IV = DSM-5, but now I realized that the "IV" represents 4, not 5.

(July 10, 2014 at 6:26 am)Rayaan Wrote: Here's another thing that it is so stupid that it makes me laugh. People who refuse and/or don't want to take medications, there's a name for that also ...

It's called "Non-compliance with Treatment Disorder."

Quote:You people are in serious denial. As a matter of fact, your unwillingness to seek professional help is itself a symptom of a serious mental problem. It’s right here in this book: 15.81 "Noncompliance with Treatment Disorder.”

– Mark Syverud, "Don't stop the insanity," the Daily Messenger

The DSM's Ridiculous Labels

I mean, it's just funny how such perfectly normal and healthy behaviors get categorized and labelled as mental disorders. Even one's choice to refuse professional help or medical treatment is deemed to be a symptom of a mental "disorder." And such labels can be thrown around too easily and vaguely without even requiring any scientific methods of validation behind them.

That is ludicrous.

Spend several weeks in a mental institution, and then tell me how ludicrous the "non-compliance" label is. Sure, the whole thing is highly subjective, but you have to understand that there are many, many severely mentally ill people that refuse to take their medication or participate in treatment. One of the issues with mental illness is it can make your mind unable to understand that you are ill, and it convinces you that you are sane.

You're approaching this whole issue from your own rational perspective instead of trying to understand that mental illness and its treatment require otherwise seemingly malicious actions. And yes, that does become a problem when subjectivity is involved, and there needs to be oversight. But to deny mental health officials the right to go against a patient's wishes would effectively neuter their ability to administer treatment.

(July 16, 2014 at 3:54 pm)Faith No More Wrote: Spend several weeks in a mental institution, and then tell me how ludicrous the "non-compliance" label is. Sure, the whole thing is highly subjective, but you have to understand that there are many, many severely mentally ill people that refuse to take their medication or participate in treatment. One of the issues with mental illness is it can make your mind unable to understand that you are ill, and it convinces you that you are sane.

+1 to this. I spent almost twenty years slowly spiraling into serious mental illness, unable to see that a problem existed, despite people around me (whom I should have known to trust) telling me that my behavior and mental state were of concern. In hindsight, as much as I would have resented it at the time, I almost wish someone would have intervened.

(July 16, 2014 at 3:54 pm)Faith No More Wrote: You're approaching this whole issue from your own rational perspective instead of trying to understand that mental illness and its treatment require otherwise seemingly malicious actions. And yes, that does become a problem when subjectivity is involved, and there needs to be oversight. But to deny mental health officials the right to go against a patient's wishes would effectively neuter their ability to administer treatment.

(Emphasis added) There's the possibility of abuse, yes, and there's necessarily a large amount of subjectivity involved.

As FNM said, spend some time on the *inside* of a mental health treatment facility as a patient and you may come away with a very different perspective on the matter.

For what it's worth, I've never been held against my will (as an adult), nor forced to take medication or undergo any treatment that I didn't consent to, despite going through periods where I was quite uncooperative and even while expressing suicidal ideation. As an adult, I've never *not* been free to walk out the door whenever I chose to (and in fact, did exactly that one time - even though I should not have). Yeah, I know anecdotes aren't worth much, but that's all I have to go on at the moment.

There certainly is potential for abuse, and that's where the oversight comes in.