DSM-5 Controversy

Psychologists start petition against DSM 5

Allen FrancesPublished on October 24, 2011 by Allen J. Frances, M.D. in DSM5 in Distress.  Allen Frances was chair of the DSM-IV Task Force.

Several divisions of the American Psychological Association have just written an open letter highly critical of DSM 5. They are inviting mental health professionals and mental health organizations to sign a petition addressed to the DSM5 Task Force of the American Psychiatric Association. You can read the letter and sign up below.  It is an extremely detailed, thoughtful and well written statement that deserves your attention and support.

The letter summarizes the grave dangers of DSM 5 that for some time have seemed patently apparent to everyone except those who are actually working on it. The short list of the most compelling problems includes: reckless expansion of the diagnostic system (through the inclusion of untested new diagnoses and reduced thresholds for old ones); the lack of scientific rigor and independent review; and dimensional proposals that are too impossibly complex ever to be used by clinicians.     Read more

David Elkins speaks out on DSM-5 concerns

Dr. David N. Elkins, President of the Society for Humanistic Psychology, Division 32 of the American Psychological Association explains the concerns about DSM-5.

DSM 5 Petition

Several divisions of the American Psychological Association have signed an open letter highly critical of DSM 5.  The psychologists are inviting mental health professionals and mental health organisations to sign a petition addressed to the DSM 5 Task Force of the Psychiatric Association.  View the petition by clicking the link below.

Psychologists’ DSM5 Petition Catching like Wildfire

Published on October 27, 2011 by Karen Franklin, Ph.D. in Witness.   Karen Franklin is a forensic psychologist in Northern California and an adjunct professor at Alliant International University. She is a former criminal investigator and legal affairs reporter.

 

An online petition by psychologists concerned about the lack of science underlying proposed changes in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) is taking off like wildfire, with more than 1,100 signatures as of this morning.

The blaze of interest is especially remarkable because the petition was launched without any publicity at all, and has gained traction solely through word of mouth.

The coalition of psychologists is publicly urging the American Psychiatric Association to reconsider the mental illness expansions and biomedical emphasis proposed for the fifth edition of the DSM, due out in 2013. The DSM-5 will reify disorders with little empirical support, lower the threshold for mental disorder, and foreground a purely biological approach to mental illness. Read more