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trillow:

“i’m the breadwinner in this family”, a man screams at his wife. “i won that bread in the competition all those years ago, don’t you fucking take that away from me.” his wife holds the mold covered bread above the open trashcan, staring him in the eye, daring him to make a move

National Institute of Mental Health abandoning the DSM

girljanitor:

avividheart:

kaalashnikov:

logicalmania:

hobbitdragon:

In a potentially seismic move, the National Institute of Mental Health - the world’s biggest mental health research funder, has announced only two weeks before the launch of the DSM-5 diagnostic manual that it will be “re-orienting its research away from DSM categories”. In the announcement, NIMH Director Thomas Insel says the DSM lacks validity and that “patients with mental disorders deserve better”.

WOW WOW WOW YESSSSSSSSS

It’s definitely a step in the right direction.

I wonder how many people on Tumblr have really taken five minutes to even google this, because no, it’s not really a good thing or a step in the right direction?

NIMH wants mental disorders to be diagnosed by genetic, biological and cognitive markers instead of ‘just lists of symptoms’, meaning that they want mental disorders to be steered more towards biological psychiatry.

Aka if your brain doesn’t look sick, you’re not sick.

I really don’t think that’s an improvement???

‘True, the NIMH is leaving some room for discussion of environmental and psychological factors. “Self-reports” will also apparently be a “unit of analysis,” though interest in the thoughts and testament of patients seems characteristically small. The agency’s overwhelming focus is to remain on the brain as the alleged seat and cause of psychiatric suffering.’ (x)

oh, ew

see the bolded.

This is why the US mental health system sucks so very, very much. At its foundation, as well as in practice. This is why it’s so very, very hard to get proper diagnosis, receive the correct treatments, or have anyone at all listen to a word you say.

If you bring in a list of symptoms, you know what they do? They photocopy your list and put it in a file as evidence of something. They don’t listen to your words, they’re watching the *way* you say things or come up with some underlying reason *why* you would say it. Bring up more than one possible condition? You’re “obsessed with sickness/illness”.

Basically, you have to go in and hope they 1. are familiar with your condition, 2. are thinking of it at the time of your (probably 15-minute-long) appointment, and 3. aren’t writing a paper on bipolar disorder, or just received a big ol chunk of “incentives” from a pharmaceutical company regarding a specific drug for a specific condition, and *actually* diagnose you with something you *actually* HAVE. And then on top of all that, you have to hope they’re not the kind of person who thinks that every woman has borderline personality disorder, or that every person of [x] race has oppositional defiant disorder, or that having a history of having been abused negates any other symptoms you might have.

The bottom line is, they’re much less likely to rate anything you say about your life or how you feel much lower in diagnostic priority than whether or not you played with your keychain the whole time.

Not to mention that NIMH has decided this, despite the fact that what ~*modern science*~ actually knows about how the brain works is fairly limited. Especially in regards to various mental illnesses, degenerative and non-degenerative conditions, and brain injuries.

I just…

*throws up hands and walks away*

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