This has been a hot topic lately since professionals and non-professionals alike have been trying to put psychiatric labels on political candidates. Some pundits claim that if they could only examine these persons directly then they could validly and ethically put a diagnostic label on a candidate (usually the candidate they don’t like). However, making, or not making a valid psychiatric diagnosis (called a disorder) requires a nuanced understanding of what a psychiatric diagnosis is all about.
Psychiatric diagnoses are made by looking the reported symptoms and behaviors a person has and seeing how these fit with criteria lists that are in a book called the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). The problem is that the reported symptoms are subjective, the evaluation by the clinician is subjective, many of these disorders’ criteria overlap, a disorder can be excluded when the symptoms can be better explained by another mental disorder, and some disorders, such as personality disorders, have very low reliability in their validity. Diagnoses with low validity are still in the DSM because it is unclear how to actually classify these persons and the profession has some inertia to changing a long tradition of using these personality disorder terms (the profession also wants to use these disorder names to bill medical insurance companies). For example, a recent presidential candidate was said by many to be narcissistic, but his self-centered behavior could very well be part of hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, or other problems. Even psychiatrists who would interview this man directly would likely have different opinions about him. Because of the subjective nature of making a psychiatric diagnosis the validity is quite variable. It is not the same as diagnosing a measurable quantity, such as high blood pressure (measured with blood pressure cuff), stroke (seen on a brain scan), or heart attack (seen on EKG or echo-cardiogram). It does not mean that psychiatric diagnoses are not real, it only means the validity in making a diagnosis in a specific person is low. When studied in large groups, some psychiatric disorders can be said to have higher validity because there are some biological changes found in some percent of these persons. For example, groups of persons with schizophrenia, severe depression, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, may have a significant percent with certain findings on functional MRI brain scans, but not all of these persons, and not all will have the same kinds of findings. The scans suggest there is something going on in the brains of these persons, but a consistent smoking-gun is elusive and so the tests can not be applied to validating a diagnosis in a single individual. For personality disorders and other conditions, there are few to no biological findings and the validity of these labels is extremely low. Psychiatric diagnoses should really only be used as a “street sign” between patients and doctors to indicate directionality to guide treatment decisions. In this way a psychiatric diagnosis necessarily remains “provisional”, and is never really definitive as a medical or surgical diagnoses can be. Extreme caution should be used in giving the name of a diagnosis to a third party, especially a school or a place of work as these labels can follow a person’s record for their lifetime regardless of the validity of the label. Needless to say, throwing around labels at public figures is rife with difficulty. It does not mean that politicians do not say or do unfavorable things, but unfavorable things are not the same as a diagnosis. For more information about Douglas Berger Psychiatrist Tokyo visit the following websites: https://dougbergertokyopsychiatrist.wordpress.com/ http://douglasbergerpsychiatristtokyo.com/ http://douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo-reviews.com/ http://about-douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo.com/ http://douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo-info.com/ http://douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo.com/ Psychiatric Times, April 29, 2017
By Lauren M. Osborne, MD, Katherine McEvoy, MB ChB, and Jennifer L. Payne, MD Original Article's URL: http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/special-reports/antidepressants-pregnancy-balancing-needs-and-risks-clinical-practice Dear authors, you mention that psychotherapy, yoga, acupuncture are “evidence-based nonpharmacological treatments” for mood disorders during pregnancy. I wonder if you can reference any study of these 3 modalities that had a double-blind placebo control that I’m sure you would agree is necessary if you study an indication with subjective endpoints like a mood disorder? If you cannot (not just rater blind or randomized), and I know you cannot, I would temper the word evidence-based. On Acupuncture, here is a recent article: Research Casts Doubt on the Value of Acupuncture, Scientific studies show that the procedure is full of holes, Scientific American, August 2016 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/research-casts-doubt-on-the-value-of-acupuncture/ The article makes these statements below: 1. Effects of acupuncture are the same whether needles are placed along the meridians or at random locations around the body. 2. Acupuncture studies are extremely difficult to double-blind—a methodological approach in which neither the researchers nor patients know who is receiving the treatment under investigation and who is receiving the placebo or sham. 3. Researchers know which patients receive or do not receive real acupuncture, likely biasing the results. For more information about Douglas Berger Psychiatrist Tokyo visit the following websites: http://douglasbergerpsychiatristtokyo.com/ http://douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo-reviews.com/ http://about-douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo.com/ http://douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo-info.com/ http://douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo.com/ Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/douglas.berger.3954 https://twitter.com/Douglas_Berger1 https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasbergerpsychiatristtokyo/ Blogs: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDj351WhGaBdU22UeV1NCCw https://douglasbergerpsychiatristtokyo.tumblr.com/ https://douglasbergerpsychiatristtokyoblog.wordpress.com/ http://douglasbergerpsychiatristtokyo.weebly.com/ Websites: DouglasBergerPsychiatristTokyo.com http://douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo-reviews.com/ http://about-douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo.com/ http://douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo-info.com/ http://douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo.com/ I was surprised that Brown did not cite this article from “JAMA Psychiatry” May, 2014 that could have helped him understand something about half (or more) of servicemen: Thirty-Day Prevalence of DSM-IV Mental Disorders Among Nondeployed Soldiers in the US Army. Results From the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Service members (Army STARRS)
http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1835338 The study found that almost half of soldiers had some mental disorder when they enlisted. The rates of disorders like attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and intermittent explosive disorder (IED) in the study were similar in the new recruits as well. This finding in line with our practice experience in Japan that includes servicing a total population of 100,000 military personnel, dependents, and civilian workers. Most of these persons seemed to us to have similar problems before they entered the service, some got worse in the service. There is a clear path of employment, training, and for long-termers a pension plan, making the military both a good choice for these persons, and these persons a good choice for the military that recruiting is not likely to give up. However, ADD, ADHD, IED, etc are frequently associated with dysphoric mood states and recurrent brief, persistent, or major depression, in addition to drinking, drug abuse, risk taking behavior, and, along with the stresses of being in a war theater the risk of suicide can increase. The answer to all of this is that, because so many persons enter the military with mental health problems to begin with, any addition of the horror of war to this baseline will continue to make it very challenging to mitigate morbidity and mortality in this population. For more information about Douglas Berger Psychiatrist Tokyo visit the following websites: http://douglasbergerpsychiatristtokyo.com/ http://douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo-reviews.com/ http://about-douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo.com/ http://douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo-info.com/ http://douglas-berger-psychiatrist-tokyo.com/ |
Author - Douglas BurgerBilingual Psychiatrist located in Tokyo. Archives
June 2018
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