Sunday, June 11, 2006

This Post Is Unrated

While cruising around the blogosphere and generally surfing the net, I came across a web page that advertised testing for just about everything: IQ, personality, depression, anxiety, psychosis (do many people with psychotic disorders search for online tests for it?) as well as a few for medical issues such as obesity (see last post) and heart disease. That got me thinking: What do you get if you invent a rating scale? Aaron Beck has his famous scale as well as the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research. Robert Hare has the ubiquitous Hare Psychopathy Checklist with its national training circuit as well as books and manuals. It seems to me that mental health has become something akin to the Tai Bo of medicine. Invent the right angle, sell it and you're pretty much set for life. The pharmaceutical industry gets a lot of heat for its profit margins and marketing efforts, and as a result drug companies have limited patents for their products. After twenty years, drugs go off-patent and generic forms are introduced. Perhaps therapeutic monitoring tools like psychological tests should also have time-limited copyrights.

7 comments:

Spiritual Emergency said...

... do many people with psychotic disorders search for online tests for it ...

I couldn't resist peeking at that one. I doubt that people go searching for such things during a state of "psychosis" but those around them might. Alternatively, the affected individual might go looking after the fact. I certainly did, although not until long after.

I think that "psychiatric services" are out of the reach for many people and those who can afford the cost of a computer and connection are using the net as a means of self-help. That means online tests, articles, support/discussion groups, even .

That got me thinking: What do you get if you invent a rating scale?

I suppose that depends on the marketing that is done and how useful the program might be. There are a number of scales, theories and models out there but popularity wanes. Tai bo will eventually go the way of other aerobic programs and Beck's scale will eventually be replaced by something new.

Perhaps therapeutic monitoring tools like psychological tests should also have time-limited copyrights.

Sounds reasonable to me. Of course, I also think some of them should be rewritten entirely.

Spiritual Emergency said...

Hmmm. I don't know what I did wrong with my link, everything showed up fine in the preview. The link belongs to the previous paragraph which had stated... support/discussion groups, even e-therapy. The link leads to an article on e-therapy.

Steve & Barb said...

The AMA has done something similar with the CPT manual (Current Procedural Terminology), which is updated annually, requiring each medical office to buy a new manual.

The APA also has the DSM (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual), the psychiatric equivalent of AMA's CPT. They don't update it near so often, but it still generates a good bit of income.

Coming soon: The Shrink Rap Blogopathy Rating Procedure ("the Burp"). All rights reserved

Spiritual Emergency said...

Coming soon: The Shrink Rap Blogopathy Rating Procedure ("the Burp").

Ahhh. Catch phrase: We put the "you" in BURP.

MT said...

Those questionnaires quaintly called "diagnostic instruments" are copyrighted and expensive, aren't they? Like several dollars for one sheet of paper? Yep, I expect one could make quite a bit. But I imagine creating a winning instrument is not much more likely than winning a Nobel or American Idol, at least with regard to use by licensed practioners.

ClinkShrink said...

Great comments, one and all. I particularly like the BURP and the slogan. Personally, I was aiming for the BARS (Blog Addiction Rating Scale, slogan: "Can you pass the Bars Exam?").

I think of a psychological test as being analagous to any other medical diagnostic test or therapeutic monitoring device. If cigarettes can be found to be a medical device that is designed to deliver nicotine (the legal theory behind the tobacoo industry class action product liability claims), then I think psychological tests could warrant the same reasoning.

Then again, I'm not a lawyer and frankly will admit I don't know the difference between a patent and a copyright.

Steve & Barb said...

JW: On the contrary, sleep is one of the few psychiatric symptoms that we can attach an objective number to (#hours). I suspect that 90%+ of the time, psychiatrists will ask about sleep when evaluating someone for the first time.

Your point about how sleep deprivation can trigger all sorts of secondary symptoms is right on target.