Back in 2012, I participated in the field trials for the DSM-5. 5000 clinicians enrolled in the Routine Clinical Practice trial. It was a trial in a way that I don’t think the American Psychiatric Association intended, and only 700 of the enrolled persisted through the training, the paperwork, and the incredibly tedious interview process long enough to complete it. I am proud to say I was one of them. I wrote about this in The Book of Woe, so you can read about it there if you haven’t already.
The APA promised us collaborating investigators (a name whose VIchyesque overtones sort of creeped me out) a few goodies in return: Some continuing education credits, a frameable certificate, our names in the back of the book, and a free copy of the DSM-5. That’s a $200 value, which, after the eight hours of training and the six hours of running the trial, comes to about $15/hr., which is more than I would have made at McDonald’s.
I did get my certificate, which even came with a black mat. I got my CEUs. I got a nice letter thanking me for my service. And late in May, a week after the DSM-5 was released, I got this positively effusive email from Lisa Countis, the manager of field operations for the APA.
From: Lisa Countis <xxxxxxxx@psych.org>
To: ApaResearch <xxxxxx@psych.org>
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2013 5:18 PM
Subject: DSM-5 Field Trials Participants: Delivery of your DSM-5
Dear Collaborating Investigators,
The DSM-5 was released to the public on May 22nd. Your copy of the new DSM will ship from the publisher within the next few days and should arrive within 2-3 weeks. Thank you again for your support and participation in the Field Trials – your input played an important part in the refinement of the diagnostic criteria. Additionally, the input we received from you throughout the study recruitment, training, and implementation process has been invaluable in informing subsequent DSM-like studies. We have learned a lot from you!
Well, those 2 or 3 weeks have come and gone many times, and I still don’t have my DSM-5. It’s hard to imagine that, after all my support and participation and all the influence I have had on DSM-like studies and all they learned from me, they would stiff me. But I have emailed Lisa Countis a few times. I’ve been cordial and polite and she initially was cordial and polite back, promising to look into it that very day. But I never heard back. And now she’s not returning my emails.
I suppose it’s possible this is just an accident, but somehow I think this might reflect a certain, I don’t know, animosity on the APA’s part toward me. Now I can understand them being so sore with me that they wouldn’t want to send me a free copy of the DSM-5. But they should have thought of that before they promised me one, or, for that matter before they let me into their clinical trial. Not only that, but their book is #15 in the amazon rankings, better by an order of magnitude than mine, and the least they could do is be magnanimous in victory. Besides, a deal is a deal, right? And if they don’t make good on it, I’ll never know–unless I shell out the two hundred bucks (actually, it’s down to about a hundred on amazon, but that is still a hundred dollars more than it costs to download the ICD codes, which will suffice for my clinical purposes)–if my name is indeed in the back of the book.
So I’m asking for a little help here. I don’t want to flood Lisa Countis’s email box, but the APA’s research arm has a general mail box. It’s aparesearch@psych.org. Perhaps you could drop them a line urging them to make good on their promise and liberate my copy of the DSM-5. Maybe tell them that it doesn’t look good when an organization so crucial to the social and moral life of our society doesn’t honor its promises. Or that it looks really menschy when you play nice with your critics. Anyone who can prove they were instrumental in getting me a copy will get a nice signed hardcover version of Manufacturing Depression (while supplies last) and my everlasting thanks. I promise!
I just saw the podcast of your brief interview on Australia’s ABC: The Drum, and read this page. (I hope you get your DSM-V!)
I haven’t read your books but shall now.
I have a theory about mental illness that goes like this:
1. Autism, ADHD, MDD, schizophrenia and GAD and other psychiatric syndromes share a common cluster of symptoms: distress (suffering), executive dysfunction, and neuroticism (hypertrophied affect). Neuroticism in autism may take some explaining, but I’ll spare you that here. If you’re interested, let me know.
2. That symptom cluster is the most disabling feature of these syndromes. Remove the distress, executive dysfunction and neuroticism from these people and most wouldn’t be thought of as ill – eccentric, possibly, but not ill.
3. Suffering causes executive dysfunction and neuroticism. (Studies into our affective and neuropsychological responses to pain and, to some extent, fatigue support this. Rigorous research into the effect of distress on cognition and affect is scarce outside pain science.)
4. Hypothesis: At the root of most instances of these syndromes is a physical condition outside the brain generating a chronic, severe, distressing “homeostatic emotion”.
This is very similar to what the nineteenth century German “somatic school” argued. I’m not an expert; I’ve been living in pain since I was a toddler and am just reflecting on my own condition. Keep up the good work.
Gary….It is good to hear your insights as one crying in the wilderness [the receptive mind]. You are up against ignorance.The material labelling of mental disorders is the problem.You are exactly moving correctly in treating your patients as a individual sovereign mind.Treating people with understanding and patience will bring out the great TRUTH in the end which LOVE accepts.Everything that is good has a source in correct thinking.The great book”science and health” by Mary baker Eddy although completely Christian in outlook explains what you are up against,{The belief that life is primarily physical}. Gary,keep treating your patients as soulful minds and you will succeed in your healing pursuits.As for the APA ,they are wrong and are completely threatened by you and the truth you speak.Keep up all your good work. Gregory Marshall.
Dear Dr Greenberg, I emailed Lisa just as you suggested. Please keep your copy of Manufacturing Depression, I already have the book and am half-way through it. Any effort to bring light on our collective suffering is a work of love, worthy of all support. You have mine.
It is terrible that APA can’t even manage to send you your earned/promised copy of DSM-5. But rather than exert energy to help you get your copy, I’m more interested in exerting energy to learn/figure out how to completely mutiny the use of this document. I’m also dedicated to some form of social treatment of the psychosis which permits both the development of such a document as well as the complete disregard for any critiques, especially the valid ones. Actually it is more like a group sociopathic effort, a brainwashed cult who devised the DSM-5 under the guise of sound empirical practices and regard for input. It is difficult at best to treat sociopaths individually, as well as those who are brainwashed by cults. What do you do when it is a group of individuals who seem to have been zombified?
I am preaching to the choir, but then so are most of us who are shocked at the DSM-5.
Do you have suggestions for an effective revolution, starting one step at a time? I will look up the ICD codes, as I am intending to establish a private practice after internship, postdoc and licensure. That would be one measure. Any other ideas?