DSM-5: The Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis

From the website:

"Publication of the fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in May 2013 will mark one the most anticipated events in the mental health field. As part of the development process, the preliminary draft revisions to the current diagnostic criteria for psychiatric diagnoses are now available for public review."

The new broader disorders proposed in the new DSM have got people wondering whether this is just a plow to encourage people to buy medicines from pharmaceutical companies because the DSM says that they have a mental illness.

According to Reuters: - "An updated edition of a mental health bible for doctors may include diagnoses for "disorders" such as toddler tantrums and binge eating."

The question has to be asked: "Would you buy your toddler drugs because they've thrown a tantrum?" Although the answer is obviously (hopefully) 'no,' it is a worry that members of the public may believe that this is best as the 'professionals' say that a temper tantrum is a disorder. This may not necessarily be the case, but it is the question being asked by those in the 'against' group for the DSM V revision.

Another point they bring up is that: "[the dsm v] could devalue the seriousness of mental illness and label almost everyone as having some kind of disorder."
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you - Carl Gustav Jung

In any case, there appears to be a lot of for and against for this revision. I guess we'll just have to see what happens in 2013.

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Other links: (external links do not necessarily reflect the thoughts and/or opinions of SDS or any of its staff, they are simply for interest and information on the opinions of others.)

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With a little help from your friends you can live longer

"A circle of close friends and strong family ties can boost a person's health more than exercise, losing weight or quitting cigarettes and alcohol, psychologists say.

Sociable people seem to reap extra rewards from their relationships by feeling less stressed, taking better care of themselves and having less risky lifestyles than those who are more isolated, they claim.

A review of studies into the impact of relationships on health found that people had a 50% better survival rate if they belonged to a wider social group, be it friends, neighbours, relatives or a mix of these.

The striking impact of social connections on wellbeing has led researchers to call on GPs and health officials to take loneliness as seriously as other health risks, such as alcoholism and smoking.

"We take relationships for granted as humans," said Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist at Brigham Young University in Utah. "That constant interaction is not only beneficial psychologically but directly to our physical health."

Holt-Lunstad's team reviewed 148 studies that tracked the social interactions and health of 308,849 people over an average of 7.5 years. From these they worked out how death rates varied depending on how sociable a person was.

Being lonely and isolated was as bad for a person's health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic. It was as harmful as not exercising and twice as bad for the health as being obese. The study is reported in the journal Plos Medicine.

Holt-Lunstad said friends and family can improve health in numerous ways, from help in tough times to finding meaning in life. "When someone is connected to a group and feels responsibility to other people, that sense of purpose and meaning translates to taking better care of themselves and taking fewer risks."

Holt-Lunstad said there was no clear figure on how many relationships are enough to boost a person's health, but people fared better when they rarely felt lonely and were close to a group of friends, had good family contact and had someone they could rely on and confide in.

Writing in the journal, the authors point out that doctors, health educators and the media take the dangers of smoking, diet and exercise seriously, and urge them to add social relationships to the list.

A report by the Mental Health Foundation in May blamed technology and the pressures of modern life for widespread feelings of loneliness in all age groups across Britain. The survey of more than 2,200 adults found one in 10 people often felt lonely and one in three would like to move closer to their family.

Andrew McCulloch, of the Mental Health Foundation, said the latest study builds on work that links isolation to poor mental and physical health. "Trends such as increasing numbers of people living alone and the advent of new technologies, are changing the way in which we interact and are leading both the young and old to experience loneliness. It is important that individuals and policy-makers take notice of emerging evidence and of the potential health problems associated with loneliness."
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But with online social networking on the increase, does this help or hinder our mental and physical health? Although online social websites allow us to catch up with more people than ever, even on the other side of the globe, has this left us more isolated?

I guess anybody can ask questions.

No go forth and socialise! For your health!


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Thinking of a Loved One Can Reduce Your Pain

The study, which asked whether simply looking at a photograph of your significant other can reduce pain, involved 25 women, mostly UCLA students, who had boyfriends with whom they had been in a good relationship for more than six months.

The women received moderately painful heat stimuli to their forearms while they went through a number of different conditions. In one set of conditions, they viewed photographs of their boyfriend, a stranger and a chair.

"When the women were just looking at pictures of their partner, they actually reported less pain to the heat stimuli than when they were looking at pictures of an object or pictures of a stranger," said study co-author Naomi Eisenberger, assistant professor of psychology and director of UCLA's Social and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. "Thus, the mere reminder of one's partner through a simple photograph was capable of reducing pain."

"This changes our notion of how social support influences people," she added. "Typically, we think that in order for social support to make us feel good, it has to be the kind of support that is very responsive to our emotional needs. Here, however, we are seeing that just a photo of one's significant other can have the same effect."

In another set of conditions, each woman held the hand of her boyfriend, the hand of a male stranger and a squeeze ball. The study found that when women were holding their boyfriends' hands, they reported less physical pain than when they were holding a stranger's hand or a ball while receiving the same amount of heat stimulation.

"This study demonstrates how much of an impact our social ties can have on our experience and fits with other work emphasizing the importance of social support for physical and mental health," Eisenberger said.

One practical piece of advice the authors give is that the next time you are going through a stressful or painful experience, if you cannot bring a loved one with you, a photo may do.
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I read the above article today by chance and thought it was very interesting. As its effects seem to be that of reduced pain, it may work in other situations, as the article suggests, such as stress relief. This may also have a knock on effect to other states such as anger, anxiety, depression, self esteem and motivation -just to name a few!

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Techniques to avoid the anger build up

I came across this advice on this website this week, offering advice on how to stop that anger build up with adolescents.

Below are 11 tips to try and avoid those angry confrontations with your teenager.

1. Encourage Appropriate Communication
2. Avoid Excessive Negative Attention
3. Try Not to React to Passive-Aggressive Behavior
4. Avoid Random Discipline
5. Don't Get into a Power Struggle
6. Look for Ways to Compromise
7. Provide Appropriate Models
8. Remember who's in Control
9. Stabilize the Environment
10. Avoid Excessive Restrictions
11. Do Not Let the Behavior Get Out of Control

Visit the website to learn more about each tip.

I found it an interesting and insightful article and I hope you do too.

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Rudeness 'increases mistakes risk'

Rudeness 'increases mistakes risk'

If you are rude to colleagues, they are rude to you or you witness rudeness, mistakes are far more likely to occur, studies have shown.

Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Rhona Flin, professor of applied psychology at the University of Aberdeen, said being the victim of rudeness can impact on how people perform tasks.

Human attention "is powerfully driven by emotion", she wrote.

In one study, students who were insulted by a professor on the way to the test performed worse on a series of memory tasks than others who had not been spoken to rudely.

"This reaction is probably caused by the emotional arousal caused by the rudeness, which resulted in a switchover of cognitive capacity to deal with the required emotional processing, or it may, more simply, be caused by distraction," Prof Flin said.

In other research, a student who was late for a group experiment apologised, but was told by the person in charge: "What is it with you? You arrive late, you are irresponsible, look at you, how do you expect to hold down a job in the real world?"

The level of rudeness was not extreme and the comment was said at normal volume.

However, students who witnessed the exchange went on to perform more poorly on tasks than a control group which had not witnessed rudeness.

Prof Flin said the link between performance and rudeness was particularly worrying when it comes to healthcare, with patients potentially being put at risk.

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What to Expect When You're Diagnosed with Panic Disorder - by Mark Sichel, LCSW

The greatest fear people experience during a panic attack is that they are going crazy or even that they are having a serious medical problem that will kill them. You may feel as if you are going to lose your mind or that you're having a heart attack or stroke, but if you're in relatively good health and have a stable history of "keeping it together," the attack will end.

This series of articles will teach you how common panic attacks are, how rapidly they end, and what the initial steps are in eliminating these attacks from your life. You will be able to complete a self-assesment and find out whether or not you are, in fact, having a panic attack. Most importantly, you'll learn that you aren't to blame for your panic attacks, and that being kinder to yourself is a good first step in mastering this problem. You'll feel better because you will feel more understood, you'll see how universal a problem panic can be, and you'll stop beating yourself up for having the problem in the first place.

Untreated, a panic disorder certainly will diminish your quality of life and potentially be disabling. Those who have had panic attacks are vulnerable to phobias, for people who have had panic attacks sometimes become phobic and will avoid the stimuli that they associate with their original panic attack. Panic disorder, however, is highly treatable through psychotherapy and/or medication and does not have to interfere with your quality of life.

People who have panic attacks do not end up in mental hospitals. People who have panic attacks feel crazy but they are not. Panic attacks involve common symptoms that are often times scary, but it does not mean you are nuts.

How long does the typical panic attack last? According to the American Psychological Association, a panic attack will generally last ten minutes. However, please note that those ten minutes feel like forever during the course of the panic attack.

You are not having a heart attack, a stroke or a seizure, but you may feel that you are seriously ill. Your heart may be pounding and your palms sweating. You may be feeling like you can't catch your breath, or that you're so dizzy that you're going to pass out. People often go to hospitals during panic attacks because they believe that they are having a heart attack, when, in fact, they are experiencing normal and common symptoms of panic.

Between three and six million Americans will have a panic disorder at one point in their lives. This means that between 1.5 and 3 percent of the population will experience panic disorder in their lifetimes. However, as many as 25 million Americans are thought to have had intermittent and scattered panic attacks.

For more valuable information about panic disorders, continue with this series by reading How Do I Know if I'm Having a Panic Attack?

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