WORRIERS GET HELP IN NEW PSYCHIATRY MANUAL
Official psychiatry could soon make it easier for the chronically worried to be diagnosed as mentally “disordered” and in need of treatment.
Among the controversial changes anticipated in the newest edition of psychiatry’s manual of mental disorders, due to arrive in May, the thresholds for “generalized anxiety disorder” (GAD) are widely expected to be loosened, a move some observers say could make it more frequently diagnosed than depression.
The publishers of psychiatry’s guidebook of mental illness won’t discuss final diagnostic criteria until the manual is completed and published in the spring. But a leading U.S. psychiatrist who chaired the task force that wrote the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, says the next manual will further obscure the “already fuzzy boundaries” between GAD and normal, everyday worries.
Ten years in the making, the latest edition of the DSM reflects the most up-to-date science and understanding of dysfunction in the brain, leaders of the American Psychiatric Association said last week in announcing its board of trustees has approved the final criteria for the fifth edition.
But while the total number of diagnoses hasn’t changed many of the early proposals that drew the most heated criticism have made it through.
They include “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder” — defined as children who exhibit “persistent irritability” and frequent “behaviour outbursts” — hoarding (people who have difficulty “discarding or parting with possessions”) binging and excoriation (skin picking) disorder.