DSM

From GoodTherapy.org: Although not currently listed in the DSM, the diagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress (C-PTSD) has gained widespread acceptance in the mental health community. The...

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is increasingly shifting its research emphasis toward attempting to uncover biomarkers for “mental diseases,” which may have dramatic consequences for research and training in clinical psychology. In an article to be published in next month’s Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Marvin Goldfried outlines how the shift in funding priorities for psychological research is tied to the needs of pharmaceutical companies and the biological model in psychiatry.

Dr. Raskin discusses psychotherapists’ dissatisfaction with current psychiatric diagnostic systems and explores alternatives.

"There is a need of a shift in investments in mental health, from focusing on 'chemical imbalances' to focusing on 'power imbalances' and inequalities"

Kev Harding argues against conceptualizations of therapy as a ‘cure’ to an ‘illness’ and instead offers alternative approaches.

From The Conversation: The search for a single, identifiable cause underlying each mental disorder has yielded very few useful results. New research suggests that a network...

In this piece for The Guardian, Jay Watts explores the social and societal factors that often lead to self-harm and explains how psychiatric labeling can exacerbate self-harm. "Self-harm...

Mental Health Europe and the British Psychological Society are looking for signatories to a letter endorsing the recent United Nations Special Rapporteur's report on...

As co-chair of the Diagnostic Summit Committee of the Society for Humanistic Psychology, I am pleased to announce that today we officially launch the Global Summit on Diagnostic Alternatives (DxSummit.org), an online platform for rethinking mental health. Our goal is to provide a place for a collegial and rigorous discussion of alternative ways to conceptualize and practice diagnosis. Today's launch is marked by the appearance of our first eight posts. These posts come from a variety of prominent people in the field, each offering a unique perspective on the current state of diagnosis and where we might take things as we move forward.

The APA DSM-5 Development website announced today that "Psychosis Risk" and "Mixed Anxiety Depression" will not be included in the DSM-5 (apart from recommendations...

From Massive: The public generally conceptualizes alcoholism as a biological brain disease and rejects the notion that social and cultural factors may contribute to addiction....

Robert Whitaker speaks about how the data shows we could have far better outcomes for people diagnosed with mental illness by going to a selective...

The initiative "A Disorder for Everyone!", which critically examines the culture of psychiatric diagnosis, has launched a new website. Click here to view videos of...

From Openforwards: The biomedical model of mental illness does not reduce prejudice against those who are suffering from mental health concerns. Words like "illness" and...

The Journal of Humanistic Psychology compiles diverse research offering diagnostic alternatives toward a paradigm shift in mental health care.

In an essay in the Sydney Morning Herald, a psychiatrist explores how the same blind faith in reductionist economic models that lead to a global...

From The Chronicle: The practice of pharmaceutical industry payments to academic researchers to help promote their drugs remains widespread. Requiring scientists to disclose their ties...

Proposal to include psychosocial adversities that impact mental health in ICD and DSM diagnoses.

Researchers in Australia investigate the growing evidence that childhood trauma predisposes individuals to both bipolar and borderline syndromes, with the intention of examining areas...

A new study explores the interplay between social stress and quality of life for individuals self-identified with high-functioning autism.

In a sample of 3021 adolescents and young adults with anxiety or depression, Dutch researchers found that 27% also had one or more psychotic symptoms. Read...

More than a year on from the release of DSM-5, a Medscape survey found that just under half of clinicians had switched to using the new manual. Most non-users cited practical reasons, typically explaining that the health care system where they work has not yet changed over to the DSM-5. Many, however, said that they had concerns about the reliability of the DSM, which at least partially accounted for their non-use. Throughout the controversies that surrounded the development and launch of the DSM-5 reliability has been a contested issue: the APA has insisted that the DSM-5 is very reliable, others have expressed doubts. Here I reconsider the issues: What is reliability? Does it matter? What did the DSM-5 field trials show?

In this guest post for Shrink Rap, Dr. Maher critiques the ways psychiatry has changed over the years. While psychiatry used to be humanistically, psychodynamically oriented,...

Researchers at Emory University find that childhood trauma, sensitivity to psychosocial stress and a heightened biological response to stress are associated with the onset...

From Critical Psychiatry: Jim van Os, who has argued we should abandon the term "schizophrenia," recently wrote an article in support of a unitary model...