Eccentrics ‘could be diagnosed with mental disorders’
Eccentrics ‘could be diagnosed with mental disorders’
Eccentrics could be labelled as having mental disorders under planned changes to diagnostic guidelines, experts have warned.
By Nick Collins
Published: 7:30AM BST 28 Jul 2010
Published: 7:30AM BST 28 Jul 2010
Patients may be more likely to be told they have psychological illnesses after experts proposed to modify classifications in a mental health guide used by doctors around the world, it was claimed.
The suggested new diagnoses in the manual, written by leading American doctors, and the potential lowering of the bar on other disorders “shrinks the pool of normality to a puddle”, critics said.
It is feared that difficult or eccentric people may be diagnosed as mentally ill, dramatically affecting their life and job prospects, without ever developing “full blown” psychosis.
One new diagnosis put forward by the authors is “Psychosis Risk Syndrome”, which identifies people thought to be at risk of developing a mental illness.
Symptoms for patients in this category may include mood changes, feelings of distress, anxiety or paranoia, or fleeting episodes of hearing voices.
Other diagnoses under consideration include “mixed anxiety depression”, “binge eating,” and “temper dysregulation disorder with dysphoria”.
Definitions of some existing disorders, such as depression, may have the bar lowered so that more people are deemed to have symptoms that merit a diagnosis.
Professor Til Wykes, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, described a trend that was “leaking into normality”.
She said: “It shrinks the pool of normality to a puddle, and there are going to be fewer people who won’t end up having a diagnosis of mental illness.”
The changes are due to appear in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) – the first time guidelines have been altered in 15 years.
The guide, published by the American Psychiatric Association, is used closely by mental health care professionals across the world.
The Journal of Mental Health, which Prof Wykes edits, contains a “health warning” about the planned changes in its latest issue, co-written by Prof Wykes and Dr Felicity Callard, from the Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.
Prof Wykes said the proposal for diagnosing “at risk” patients may lead to unnecessary psychological or medical treatments.
Dr Callard added: “If this category were to be introduced the people likely to be given this diagnosis are going to be relatively young. What are the implications of someone receiving a diagnosis that is not a diagnosis of a disorder as such, but a potential disorder?”
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