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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 8 of 8. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by badhaircut on December 27, 2004, at 14:43:32
There's a profile in the current 'New Yorker' about Robert Spitzer, the psychiatrist who edited the DSM-III and thereby "revolutionized psychiatry." (The DSM is the 'Diagnostic and Statistical Manual' that pdocs, therapists and others use to classify their patients, inmates, and research subjects. The DSM-III came out in 1980.)
Spitzer is apparently a cold fish. A colleague said: “He would never say hello. You could stand right next to him and be talking to him and he wouldn’t even hear you. He didn’t seem to recognize that anyone was there.”
Others said that he could never understand when or why people were upset or what he had done to upset them. "...After years of confrontations, Spitzer is now aware of this shortcoming, and says that he struggles with it in his everyday life."
Another said that Spitzer’s emotional myopia is HELPFUL to him as a psychiatrist: “He doesn’t understand people’s emotions. He knows he doesn’t. But that’s actually helpful in labelling symptoms. It provides less noise.”
(Okay.....)
There's an interesting description of how he chose what to put in the DSM. There'd be bull sessions of several psychiatrists around a table talking about a particular disorder, and Spitzer would just use for criteria in the book whatever was said last, or loudest, or by the person he respected the most.
The article is in the Jan 3, 2005, 'New Yorker' by Alix Spiegel, "The Dictionary of Disorder," available (for now) at: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050103fa_fact
Posted by Mark H. on December 27, 2004, at 15:37:47
In reply to The man behind the DSM, posted by badhaircut on December 27, 2004, at 14:43:32
Fascinating! Thank you for sharing this.
Mark H.
Posted by just plain jane on December 27, 2004, at 20:14:50
In reply to The man behind the DSM, posted by badhaircut on December 27, 2004, at 14:43:32
has, for me, always been a lighter side look at our society's need to classify everything.
Still have to tolerate the use of it for our MH profession, but I don't have to take it too seriously.
just plain jane
Posted by alexandra_k on December 27, 2004, at 20:23:05
In reply to The man behind the DSM, posted by badhaircut on December 27, 2004, at 14:43:32
heh heh, I wonder if biologists use the same system in deciding family trees of species.
I always KNEW that he who bangs loudest gets listened to MOST!
heh heh.
Of course it is mildly disturbing really..
Posted by Toph on December 29, 2004, at 21:29:14
In reply to The man behind the DSM, posted by badhaircut on December 27, 2004, at 14:43:32
If I recall correctly the first two versions of the DSM classified homosexuality as a mental disorder. Though neither a homosexual nor a clinician, I find this classification definitive proof of the unreliability of the pundits bend on classifying individual human beings. It reminds me of the Church's conviction of Galileo on a charge of heresy because of his belief that the Earth rotates round the sun. No doubt there is utility in classification, but not all beagles act like snoopy and not all bipolars respond to lithium.
-whiteanglosaxonmaleheterosexualliberalsocialworkerhusbandfathersonbrotherbipolarneuroticloverofthaifood
Posted by badhaircut on December 30, 2004, at 6:39:41
In reply to Re: The man behind the DSM » badhaircut, posted by Toph on December 29, 2004, at 21:29:14
> If I recall correctly the first two versions of the DSM classified homosexuality as a mental disorder.
In fact, Spitzer got his job as editor of volume 3 because of his diplomacy in brokering the reclassification of homosexuality in the early 1970s. Ironies abound. The man who showed that one glib classification of "disease" was political and unjust went on to write all the other official glib classifications.
Posted by Toph on December 30, 2004, at 9:27:15
In reply to Spitzer and gays » Toph, posted by badhaircut on December 30, 2004, at 6:39:41
You are obviously well informed on the subject. I have gone from being a manic-depressive to bipolar to bipolar I and anxiously await my new classification.
-Toph
Posted by alexandra_k on January 1, 2005, at 15:25:14
In reply to Interesting to know » badhaircut, posted by Toph on December 30, 2004, at 9:27:15
> You are obviously well informed on the subject. I have gone from being a manic-depressive to bipolar to bipolar I and anxiously await my new classification.
As do we all :-)
There is a rumour that the current diagnostic categories may all go out the window. Instead people will be ranked according to the 'severity of symptoms' to reflect the notion that many symptoms are to be found in the 'normal' population, it is just the degree to which they are present that is of concern.
Not sure whether they are going to actually do away with the present categories to do this or not. My guess would be not. I don't know. I thought DSMV was due out this year, but maybe I'm wrong.
(I predict a brown cover)
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