The editorial board and staff of Psychiatric Times wish to announce, with much regret, the retirement of Max Fink, MD, from our journal’s editorial board. Dr Fink-who is emeritus professor of psychiatry and neurology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook-has been a valued member of our board since 2002, and a regular contributor to the journal for many years before that.
Surveys show that approximately 60% of the general population has gambled within the past 12 months.1 The majority of people who gamble do so socially and do not incur lasting adverse consequences or harm. Beyond this, approximately 1% to 2% of the population currently meets criteria for pathological gambling.2 This prevalence is similar to that of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, yet pathological gambling often goes unrecognized by most health care providers.
An overview of the critical issues involved in overcoming personal and organizational barriers to help substance abusers quit smoking.
>I greatly enjoyed Dr Ron Pies’ editorial “What Should Count as a Mental Disorder in DSM-V?”1 in which he encouraged framers of DSM-V to critically examine the boundaries of mental illness and to more carefully distinguish between diseases, disorders, and syndromes. As I have noted elsewhere, current plans to integrate a “spectrum” approach into DSM-V require a careful consideration of these issues that must be defensible to critics of diagnostic expansion within psychiatry.2
There is no magic moment when it becomes clear that the world needs a new edition of the DSM. With just one exception, the publication dates of all previous DSM’s were determined by the appearance of new revisions of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Thus, DSM-I appeared in conjunction with ICD-6 in 1952; DSM-II with ICD-8 in 1968; DSM-III with ICD-9 in 1980; and DSM-IV with ICD-10 in 1994. The lone exception was DSM-IIII-R, which appeared in 1987-out of cycle only because it was originally meant to be no more than a minor revision. The official publication date for DSM-V is May 2012. That date was picked to be consistent with an earlier, no longer correct, expectation that ICD-11 would be published in that same year.
I found the American Psychiatric Association’s response (“Setting the Record Straight”) to the commentary by Allen Frances, MD, (“A Warning Sign on the Road to DSM-V”) outlining concerns about the DSM-V to be an embarrassing black mark against the association.* As president of an organization supposedly devoted to scientific objectivity, Dr Alan Schatzberg’s (lead author of the response) ad hominem attack and use of unprovable innuendos to discredit Dr Frances reflects an approach I want nothing to do with.
Abortion trauma syndrome is a fabricated mental disorder conceived by anti-abortion activists to advance their cause and is not a scientifically based psychiatric disorder. So said 2 psychiatrists at the American Psychiatric Association’s recent annual meeting in San Francisco.
The FDA recently approved iloperidone (Fanapt, Vanda Pharmaceuticals) for the treatment of schizophrenia, reversing a July 2008 determination that the New Drug Application (NDA) was “not approvable.” An FDA spokesperson explained in an interview in Forbes (May 8), “Vanda provided the FDA with additional data and arguments that led us to reinterpret results of several of their studies.”
The process of adapting to prison life, or “prisonization,” exerts a dehumanizing effect that may result in feelings of hopelessness and alienation.
Strategies for Recognizing Schizophrenia and Treating to Remission
A National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report urging a more coordinated approach to prevention and treatment of depression in parents-because of its impact on children-hit the streets just as Congress began considering legislation to reform the US health insurance system. The NAS report made a number of recommendations for changing the approach of both public and private health insurers toward depression, although the front-line troops expected to deal with the problem are primary care physicians, who already treat 70% of patients with depression.
As a standing member of the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times, I read with particular interest the front-page story in the March issue, “Pharmonitor: Reality-Checking and Journalistic Integrity” by Editor in Chief Ronald Pies, MD. In it, Dr Pies pointed out that “disclosures do not guarantee scientific or journalistic objectivity and accuracy.” He set out the critical scientific questions that ought to be asked, and he promised that “Pharmonitor” would be “a reader-driven commentary . . . focusing on articles and reports in Psychiatric Times that the reader considers biased.”
Although the onset of psychotic symptoms before the age of 13 years is exceedingly rare, the incidence of schizophrenia rises sharply after the onset of puberty.1 Only 1% of the population has schizophrenia and 30% of these patients experience an onset of psychotic symptoms by age 18 years.2-8 The period that precedes the onset of frank psychotic symptoms (ie, the prodromal phase) has not been well characterized in early-onset schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (EOSS), but retrospective reports have shown that symptoms include high levels of depression and anxiety, emerging cognitive and social deficits, unusual thought content, and (not infrequently) school failure.
I had intended not to reply to the silly suggestion made by the DSM-V leadership that I wrote my critique out of financial motivations. I had expected that we would be conducting a useful discourse on the concrete issues and was surprised by the unenlightening personal exchange. Unfortunately, the DSM-V leadership refuses to discuss any of the substantive questions I have raised and instead, I am told, persists in the shallow rationalization that whatever I say is about royalties.
What the New Mind-Body Science Tells Us About the Pathophysiology of Major Depression-Focus on Treatment
For pharmaceutical companies, off-label use of a drug represents a substantial “gray market,” to which the company is unable to sell their product directly, yet may be a significant revenue stream. Some drugs have been used more for off-label purposes than for originally approved indications.1
In a shot recently fired around the online world, commentary about the DSM-V process by Allen Frances, MD, has sparked heated debate that continues to reverberate around the psychiatric world.
Historically, borderline patients were considered “help-rejecting complainers.” Clinicians should actively treat both mood/anxiety symptoms and BPD symptoms.
A Different Approach to Treatment Resistance
The articles in this Special Report reflect the growing recognition of the importance of the problem of treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders.
This statistic is as familiar as it is startling. According to the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication (NCS-R), the peak age of onset for any disease involving mental health is 14 years. True for bipolar disorder. True for anxiety. True for schizophrenia and substance abuse and eating disorders. The data suggest that most mental health challenges emerge during adolescence. If true, this brings to mind an important developmental question:
There is currently a small but impressive evidence base that shows that psychological and interpersonal factors play a pivotal role in pharmacological treatment responsiveness.
The chances for full recovery from major depressive disorder diminish the longer a patient remains depressed-a fact that lends a sense of urgency for appropriate therapy.
Telemedicine-the use of electronic technologies to deliver medical care at a distance-continues to gain popularity and widespread use in all medical specialties, including psychiatry. However, many residents enter their training without any clinical experience in telemedicine in general or its applications in psychiatry.
I read with great interest and considerable apprehension Dr. Frances’ assessment of the DSM-V developmental process ("A Warning Sign on the Road to DSM-V," Psychiatric Times, July 2009).
I had intended not to reply to the silly suggestion made by the APA leadership that I wrote my critique of the DSM-V process out of financial motivations.
I appreciate Drs Spitzer and Frances’ prompt response to my article, which was published in the July issue of Psychiatric Times. I also thank them for their good wishes and thoughts about what we are doing as members of the DSM-V workgroups-membership whose rules we all knew and freely accepted.
I wrote, directed, coedited, and financed DisFigured because it’s a movie I wanted to see. I’m not a woman and I don’t have an eating disorder, but the issues of appearance, control, isolation, and our complicated relationships with our bodies seem universal to me. They are also sadly underexplored or horribly twisted in almost every form of media. I am particularly aware of this because my wife Jenn is beautiful, graceful, stylish and-according to popular culture-fat.
Since the inclusion of the borderline personality disorder (BPD) diagnosis in DSM, there have been multiple efforts to recast the disorder as part of an Axis I illness category. While the initial focus was on the schizophrenia spectrum, more recent authors have attempted to link BPD to mood disorders.