Sunday, May 19, 2013

Tower of Brains

It may be a pure coincidence, but at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art they're displaying a tower of brains during APA week. Meanwhile, the DSM5 is officially out:

And if that weren't enough chaos for you, we have the obligatory APA protesters. (Do urologists get protesters at their conventions?)


I'm looking forward to meeting with Roy and our longsuffering Clinical Psychiatry News editor for dinner tonight.

10 comments:

Joel Hassman, MD said...

That is a disturbing image of that tower. At first was a bit annoyed could not see the protesters closer, but, then realized, I wouldn't want to be near them either.

Is there a spiral simple edition of DSM5 so I can advise the CMHC Director to just buy those for the sake of anyone foolish enough to have to refer can use a simple AND CHEAP version?

Especially to you out there, BE SAFE AND BE WELL!

ClinkShrink said...

Thanks Joel, things are quieter today mainly because lots of streets are blocked off for the Bay to Breakers race. Even yesterday the protesters were loud but lawful and peaceful (albeit with a lot of police around). I have to say, in an age of protest bombs and poisoned letters, protest signs and placards seem almost quaint.

Roy will probably be writing more about this soon, but I understand APA members may be getting VERY easy and cheap access to DSM5. I'll let him address the details. I don't know about spiral editions but I imagine there will be one evenutally.

Joel Hassman, MD said...

Well, not a member, but I'll pay for a spiral version, but I would rather the clinic pay for a few of those and not the $200, unless the APA is kind to organizations that provide mental health in quantity?

Whatever, hope the weather is nice, gray and cool in B-town!

Psycritic said...

If the APA has any brains at all as an organization, then they would make the DSM-5 criteria available online for free for everyone, not just APA members. That would be the most effective way of getting people to adopt DSM-5 and to undercut the criticism that the APA is ripping people off with an exorbitantly priced DSM-5.

It would also free the APA from having to devote resources for going after other sites (like Wikipedia) for copyright infringement if they post the criteria online. Certainly it's already quite easy to Google the DSM-IV criteria for any disorder, so it's not like the APA would prevent malingering by restricting online access to DSM-5.

Zoe Brain said...

Zombie attractor?

The tower I mean, not the DSM-5.

Anonymous said...

""And if that weren't enough chaos for you, we have the obligatory APA protesters. (Do urologists get protesters at their conventions?)""

Clink, I tried to think of a good response besides the usual points that have been made on this blog. I finally found this link that I think is a perfect example of why people are so angry with psychiatry:

"Dramatic growth in antipsychotic drug use even targets infants, experts say"

http://tinyurl.com/lrrsbwe

Frankly, I am speechless except to say I don't think Urologists would be prescribing powerful drugs like antipsychotics to two and three year olds.

AA



Anonymous said...

"We have the obligatory APA protesters." And that sounds like the obligatory dismissal by a psychiatrist of real human beings who have themselve been harmed, or had loved ones harmed, by the unholy alliance between psychiatry and big pharma.

Anonymous said...

No, urologists do not get protestors. They get prostators.

jesse said...

@Anon: that is so good you should patent it, or at least not be anonymous about it! Bravo!

Zoe Brain said...

BTW Urologists *do* get some protestors at their conventions.

To see why - Defendants decided to remove the child's healthy genital tissue and "radically restructure his reproductive organs in order to make his body appear to be female," the lawsuit states.

Or, as one victim put it:
The assumption is made that intersex individuals develop gender dysphoria (i.e. transsexuality), whereas as I have learned by talking to people who have had such surgery as an infant and later transitioned was that the reality is that simply the wrong gender was chosen. In short, gender dysphoria in intersex individuals is caused as a result of the performed surgery.

The protestors want genital reconstructive surgery performed for non-medical reasons to be banned, since about 1 time in 3 the urologists etc guess wrong. Those are measured figures.