Diagnostic Statistical Manual

As prominent neuroscientist Jane Costello resigns in protest from the DSM-V committee, Danny Carlat says the process near meltdown: The Fifth Coming of DSM threatens to rend the fabric of American psychiatry. Let's hope some cool heads in the APA's leadership can find a way out of this mess. Stay tuned. The DSM isn't just a workbook; it's the theoretical framework and the de-facto prescription guideline for American psychiatry. This level of disagreement and polarization only deepens my belief that the discipline is at crisis point and a crossroads -- and in the nasty, scratchy fight over…

I have suspected for some time now that the band oddly close process designed to produce the DSM-V --- the diagnostic statistical manual that is psychiatry's diagnostic guide and Bible --- would create an explosion of some sort. But I didn't think it would explode quite so soon. As Daniel Carlat outlines in a wonderful post â a must read, very high infotainment value â this is a pretty entertaining missing match. We have Allen Frances, a prominent psychiatrist who helped produce the previous edition of the DSM, leveling some very harsh criticisms of the process designed to produce a new…