In previous editions, you the patient had to meet certain specified criteria in order to be diagnosed for any particular condition. For example, if I were going to diagnose you as having schizophrenia, then you had to have specific symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations. If you didn't have those symptoms, then I couldn't make the diagnosis of schizophrenia.The whole article is behind a paywall at the Wall St. Journal ('Unspecified Mental Disorder'? That's Crazy ) :-( but you see where this is headed. Either you exhibit specific symptoms of some disorder or other, or you don't. In either case, you're suffering from a mental debilitation. So what? I hear you ask. Well if you've been diagnosed with a mental disorder, you're no longer allowed to possess firearms. Think about that.
Not anymore. Last month, DSM-5 introduced a new diagnosis, "Unspecified Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder." The only required criterion is that you have some distress from unspecified symptoms, but you "do not meet the full criteria for any of the disorders in the schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders diagnostic class." You don't have to have delusions. You don't have to have hallucinations. In fact if you do have delusions and hallucinations, then you probably don't qualify for unspecified schizophrenia. (You will find the new diagnosis in one short paragraph at the bottom of page 122 of DSM-5.)
Likewise for every other diagnostic category, including, for example, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Let's suppose that you occasionally don't pay attention to your wife. You don't meet the old-fashioned criteria for ADHD, which included impairment in multiple settings, like on the job or while driving. You are inattentive only when your wife is talking. You pay attention to everybody else. Hey, no problem. You now qualify for "Unspecified Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder."
In the past I had said that Testosterone makes you stupid, and Estrogen makes you crazy. No offense, it's how nature keeps us from becoming extinct. Now it's official: Testosterone gives you Unspecified Mental Degradation and Estrogen gives you unspecified everything else. The only recognized cure for any of this of course will be election or appointment to high political office.
5 comments:
I am a licensed psychologist. While your point about the "unspecified" diagnoses in DSM-V is correct, what you miss is that there have been categories such as this for a very long time. It's been a long time since I looked at a DSM-III-R, but the DSM-IV came out in 1994 and has a number of "not otherwise specified" diagnoses. They are not designed to capture everyone, but are there to provide trained professional a way describe someone's symptoms with a diagnosis that meets the general premise of the category but does not fit in a specific box; not to label anyone and everyone as disordered. A bit of history is needed here. Diagnoses were originally designed only to speed communication between providers, not for all the other crap they have come to be used for.
Also, I don't know what state you live in, but just being diagnosed with a mental health diagnosis does not render anyone unable to possess firearms in any of the states I've worked. Having a court conclude that you are legally insane or having a court commit you to a mental health facility is what renders you unfit.
In California, if you check yourself into a mental hospital, no judge involved, no adjudication at all, that's enough to stop your dros.
I know someone for whom that is true.
And it is in fact all the new things the diagnoses are being used for that is causing all this trouble.
I live in Colorado, AKA "East Berkley". We were just inflicted with a raft of anti-gun laws which no one is 100% sure what they will accomplish.
As Windy says, it's not that the law or regulation or whatever says, it's what the local government / law enforcement decides to do with it. When authority is given, abuse may be safely assumed to follow.
When an otherwise innocuous law or regulation is abused by the authorities, taking the issue to court frequently entails an expensive 2-year trip through the looking glass to get to a court that can actually make a decision. By this time a lot of damage is already done.
IIRC, recently some fellow in New York was under considerable stress and went his doctor, who gave him anti-depressants. The news of this somehow reached the state police who came and confiscated his modest collection of antique firearms. The fellow was furious and successfully sued to get them back, but the experience was probably sufficient to get him diagnosed as "paranoid".
Well as a (no longer practicing) criminal defense attorney who has dealt with a lot of psych issues (my clients, not me) the standard to involuntarily commit someone is still that they have to be a danger to themselves or others. You can have any number of mental illnesses without being involuntarily committed.
One would have to be crazy not to appreciate the tremendous good work the liberal Democrats are doing.
And we need to be careful of crazy people.
That approach worked quite well in old Soviet-style governments (rest cures in Siberia were usually prescribed).
Of course, we wouldn't do that here.
Jim W: You're right (of course) - and that's led to more than a few innocent people being killed by those "not quite committable", or from prisons or other facilities being too overcrowded to admit new patients.
Complicated questions do not admit of simple solutions.
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