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Thursday, January 12, 2012

American Psychiatric Association "Slapps" down web site critical of DSM5

Dr. Bernard Carroll,former head of psychiatry at Duke,writing on the blog Health Care Renewal ,writes about an interesting conflict between the APA and a former editor of DSM. See here.

Dr. Allen Francis who edited DSM4 has been highly critical of the DSM process and particularly of the yet to be released DSM5.He expresses concern that psychiatry is being practiced less by psychiatrists and more by primary care physicians, who are busy and often not very well trained in managing psychiatric problems and at times strongly influenced by marketing .

His criticism includes the charge that with the publication of DSM5, not yet released, there will be more patients diagnosed with DMS defined mental conditions as new diagnoses are being added and the criteria for others have been broadened. His comments regarding his view of the problems with DSM were appearing on at least one web site.


Now the APA,who owns DSM and profits from its publication and use, has sent out a cease and desist threat to the website previously known as "dsm5watch" Their argument was that the website to which he contributed a contained the letters DSM and that was a copyright infringement. The new name for the website is "dxrevisionwatch.wordpress.com"

The explanation for the strange spelling of "slap" in this post's headline is that the APA actions might be described by some as a "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation". In this case only a threat.


See here for more comments by Dr. Francis and here for a reply by the APA to some of the criticism it has received lately.

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