December 20, 2012
When plans for the DSM-5 were first announced about ten years ago, most folks’ reaction was “Why?”. Many of us asked that same question several times as the publication date for the new tome kept on getting pushed back. Finally, the curtain enshrouding the DSM-5 Task Force and its several committees began to part and proposed revisions/additions began to appear on its website. To our dismay, we found our question answered.
The Task Force appeared intent on moving Kraepelin’s bar further along his mythical mental illness continuum by lowering most diagnostic thresholds and exposing more of us to being categorized with some disorder and probably being medicated. To great consternation, it removed the bereavement exclusion that historically has been applied to individuals’ grieving over the loss of a loved one. You can, of course, still grieve, but you now have only two weeks to do so. If you grieve for longer than two weeks and get depressed to boot, you are now eligible for categorization with a Major Depressive Disorder and will probably be prescribed an SSRI by a diligent primary care physician or any psychiatrist you happen to visit.
More at: http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/12/...ott-the-dsm-5/