The US National Institute of Mental Health no longer uses the DSM to direct research.



Our Draft letter letter to the ABA  Criminal Justice Section regarding the DSM 5​

& Resources

BOTTOM LINE:  Reliance on DSM 5 Psychiatric Diagnoses in the Criminal Justice System raises many profound legal and ethical issues since US, Canadian & British researchers have found the basis of those diagnoses “lack validity” and are “scientifically meaningless.”

These ethical problems persist even though issues of Competency and Insanity do not typically specify a particular mental health diagnosis, although laws may reference the requirement of some type of recognized mental health disorder.
Draft Letter to the Criminal Justice Section of the ABA.

More REsources for our letter to the ABA* on the DSM

*American Bar Association
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doctors & Information overload

Val's Take:  Ultimately, this Tsumami of Medical Information must be computerized, updated & accessible on a SCALE far greater than what is available today.

This has HUGE IMPLICATIONS for the Mental Health Profession that has been afraid to come to terms with a "scientifically meaningless" diagnostic manual.
It’s no secret that doctor burnout is a real and growing issue. I’ve seen it time and again in fellow internal medicine physicians, as well as colleagues in other specialties such as cardiology.

But there’s something contributing to this phenomenon that doesn’t get as much attention as EHRs, increased administrative duties, and reduced time with patients.
 
That something is information overload.
 
To get a sense of sheer volume, as of March 2019, there were 679,747 articles on PubMed labeled “clinical trial.”

The number of medical sources continues to climb, and the reality is that new clinical research is coming out so fast doctors simply can’t keep up.

And it’s not that they don’t want to. They just don’t have the time. In a recent survey by Univadis of 550 physicians across five specialties—general medicine, cardiology, endocrinology, oncology, and—64 percent said the time they spend keeping up to date in their field is insufficient.

​That number was higher for cardiologists (68 percent) and general practice (65 percent) doctors. 

Medical & legal overload

All professionals are vulnerable to becoming closed-minded, and attorneys are no exception. Mental health practitioners may be locked in the past, relying on information received during their early years of training.

By definition, “professionalism” embraces advancing knowledge for the discipline. From experience, precious few mental health practitioners regularly read professional journals, with too many adhering instead to concepts gained in early training.

Personal subscriptions to journals published by the American Psychological Association tend to be declining.

​ In this age of ready access via electronic databases, it seems that competency for expert testimony should include assiduous effort to advance professional knowledge. Failure to do so opens the door to possible impeachment.

Val's Take:  Have we already exceeded the amount of scientific information clincians and experts can process?  We think we have.

​We're not going to be able to solve this by reading more journals.