I’m an INFP verging on INFJ (what’s that?), Sagittarius with Scorpio rising. I’m not autistic I don’t think, despite all the links, posts and obvious interest. I’ve always been a nerd however, which could probably get me an autism spectrum label these days, with all the overdiagnosing that’s going on. I’d rather see myself as having a few traits, like an eidetic (photographic) memory till the age of 9 (which was a really cool thing to have), hypersensitivity to sound, strengths in abstract math and programming.
“It seems that for success in science and art, a dash of autism is essential.” - Dr. Hans Asperger
Concerning the eidetic memory, I read somewhere that it only happens to the retarded and the culturally deprived. Which really depressed me for a time, until someone told me that it can also happen to the traumatized and the very creative. It was an amazing gift to be able to see right before my eyes complete pages that I’d looked at the night before - if I looked at them long enough -the whole text, including the page number. I used to wonder how many others in my class had the same ability. It seemed to me that I had some sort of unfair advantage come test time.
The downside was when I saw something disturbing or distressing on TV, and in those days there were no warnings for sensitive audiences. The images would haunt me for weeks, if not months or longer.
I don’t think I’m dyslexic either, but I do have left-right hand confusion, which I’d rather see as a dyslexic trait or quirk. ‘Right – write with your right hand’. And I need to lift the hand I usually write with to indicate to myself the direction right. It’s not automatic for me. Then again, I started out left-handed but made myself switch to right when I saw everyone else in my 1st grade class using their right-hand. Such a conformist at such a young age, or was I just afraid to stand out? In those days, teachers taught with pointers, which they also used to hit the palms and knuckles of distracted or misbehaving students. No ADD/ADHD and Ritalin in those days. Which would you say was the lesser of two evils, corporal punishment or psychiatric ‘intervention’?
I’m no big fan of psychiatry. Like many, I’ve seen its casualties and survivors. Psychiatry seems to be only about social control. Which is why I believe certain differences or problems have no business being diagnosed or treated by psychiatry, because they’re not social control issues. Problems like epilepsy, for instance, which used to be considered a mental illness and treated with restraints, drugs and shocks. Did you know that even today, Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE), is sometimes mistaken for mental illness? Happened to an acquaintance of a friend of mine.
Differences like homosexuality, and did you know that a few psychiatrists are hoping to get that one back into the DSM? And hundreds of other problems ranging from jet lag – (are you kidding?!) – to bruxism, impotence, stuttering, and autism.
Thankfully, people are speaking out, like Paula J. Caplan, clinical and research psychologist. Read about her call for congressional hearings on psychiatric diagnosis.
http://www.answers.com/topic/diagnostic-and-statistical-manual-of-mental-disorders
The DSM has seen criticisms through the years. A Columbia University team headed by Robert Spitzer, an editor of the DSM, acknowledges a concern about the DSM in their annual report of 2001, “Problems with the current DSM-IV categorical (present vs. absent) approach to the classification of personality disorders have long been recognized by clinicians and researchers.” Among the problems, they list “arbitrary distinction between normal personality, personality traits and personality disorder” and point out the fact that the most commonly diagnosed personality disorder is 301.9, Personality Disorder not Otherwise Specified. [5]
There have also been questions of potential bias of DSM authors who define psychiatric disorders. According to The Washington Post, an analysis published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics[6] pointed out that “every psychiatric expert involved in writing the standard diagnostic criteria for disorders such as depression and schizophrenia has had financial ties to drug companies that sell medications for those illnesses.”[7] However, an important limitation of this study was that the analysis did not reveal the extent of their relationships with industry or whether those ties preceded or followed their work on the manual.
In the United States, health insurance typically will not pay for psychological or psychiatric services unless a DSM-IV mental disease diagnosis accompanies the insurance claim. The website of the DSM-V Prelude Project[8] covers shortcomings of the DSM-IV that may be subject for improvements for the DSM-V.
Welcome to the DSM-V Prelude Project. Although the DSM-V revision process will not formally begin until 2006 or 2007 (see timeline), the American Psychiatric Association has created this web site in order to keep the public and professionals informed about the plans for DSM-V as well as the ongoing effort to enrich the research base in advance of starting formal work on DSM-V. In addition, this web site provides an opportunity for you to alert us to problems in the DSM-IV that you may have encountered and to provide your suggestions for DSM-V.
Oh boy, do I ever have suggestions for the DSM-V! One can only hope that in its new incarnation, jet lag will no longer be considered a psychiatric disorder.