The American Psychiatric Association is considering adopting
a new diagnostic system to make the diagnosing of personality orders easier and
more accurate. This relates back to Daniel’s lecture about disabilities in
America and how they are viewed. The article describes those with such
disorders as misfits who are isolated on their own island. It shows how the
goal of people who are not affected by such conditions to categorize people who
have the disorders in order to find a way to cure them or to make their life
better than it is before their diagnosis. The difficulty to distinguish the differences
between different disorders was largely discussed, arguing that the current
system used to identify the disorders were much too vague and need to be
simplified. Thus making it more efficient to place the people into the category
in which they belong according to the Association. This directly relates to the
labeling of those who are different from the norm so that those doing the
labeling can try to understand their differences so they can be better
understood and hopefully “fixed”.
I agree that this article relates to the lecture and the reading on disabilities. The American Psychiatric Association is trying to help more people,however, it is hard to know who actually needs the help. After all, how can anyone know what constitutes a normal personality?
ReplyDeletey'all are awesome. very good points and good questions!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what the original poster means by "so that those doing the labeling can try to understand their differences so they can be better understood and hopefully 'fixed'". Are you saying that by overhauling the current diagnostic system, people with mental health disorders can be more easily labled and therefore "fixed"?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking as someone with a diagnosed personality disorder and a family history of the same disorder, this is absurd. You cannot "fix" a personality disorder. You can treat it, make it managable, reduce the ill-effects on the individual's life, but you cannot simply "fix" it. Diagnosing it is just as difficult (reflected in the current problems with the DSM) because every individual presents different symptoms and the symptoms are often reflective of a broad category of disorders.
While I appreciate the sentiment that the APA's efforts to change the DSM are going to be helpful to those needing treatment, this terminology needs to be changed. "Labeled" presents a negative connotation, implying a stigma against those affected by mental illness. Certainly "fixed" isn't appropriate either, since you don't just pop a pill and magically be cured. Treating mental illness is a long and difficult process, and the prevalence of these attitudes is demeaning to those who are in that process. (No offence to the original poster, I am sure you weren't intending to come across this way.)
Actually this book/system for identifying psychological systems is called the DSM-IV-TR (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), and the 5th edition is going to come out 2013. One part that I wanted to mention (that may not directly relate to your post) is the part that this book used to include, in the first version, homosexuality. Like in Daniel Caeton's lecture about disability, homosexuality used to be viewed as a psychological disorder. It is here that I emphasize on the importance of psychology. Many people say that psychology is a subject that tells us about things that we already know, and is not a truly valuable subject matter. However, had it not been for the American Psychological Association finally defining a "psychological disorder" as something that must be "dysfunctional, or disrupting to daily life," perhaps homosexuality would still be an item in the book, defined as a psychological disorder that must be cured.
ReplyDelete