Shyness, grieving soon to be classified as mental illness

By Hum
in Science News & Discussion

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Grand Master

Hum

Posted
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Millions of healthy people - including shy or defiant children, grieving relatives and people with fetishes - may be wrongly labeled mentally ill by a new international diagnostic manual, specialists said on Thursday.

In a damning analysis of an upcoming revision of the influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health experts said its new categories and "tick-box" diagnosis systems were at best "silly" and at worst "worrying and dangerous."

Some diagnoses - for conditions like "oppositional defiant disorder" and "apathy syndrome" - risk devaluing the seriousness of mental illness and medicalising behaviors most people would consider normal or just mildly eccentric, the experts said.

At the other end of the spectrum, the new DSM, due out next year, could give medical diagnoses for serial rapists and sex abusers - under labels like "paraphilic coercive disorder" - and may allow offenders to escape prison by providing what could be seen as an excuse for their behavior, they added.

The DSM is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and has descriptions, symptoms and other criteria for diagnosing mental disorders. It is used internationally and is seen as the diagnostic "bible" for mental health medicine.

More than 11,000 health professionals have already signed a petition (at dsm5-reform.com) calling for the development of the fifth edition of the manual to be halted and re-thought.

Grand Master

techbeck

Posted
Posted

Just another excuse for the drug companies to get more people addicted and to make more money off of them. Grieving is something that everyone goes through and shyness is just a personality trait. So I guess everyone here has a mental illness now?

Grand Master

ILikeTobacco

Posted
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Just another excuse for the drug companies to get more people addicted and to make more money off of them. Grieving is something that everyone goes through and shyness is just a personality trait. So I guess everyone here has a mental illness now?

I am not shy, I just don't want to talk to you!... crap now I am asocial. :rofl:

Grand Master

Anibal P

Posted
Posted

Are they trying to force one standard of behavior on everyone ?

Or trying to get as many as possible dependent on prescription drugs ?

The answer is a little of both, society has always wanted a strictly defined version of "normal", and of course drug makers want as many people on drugs as possible.

Wonder how they would classify me, I'm generally asocial, and generally hate interacting with the average idiot you have to deal with in "normal" society

Grand Master

Charisma Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
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Are they trying to force one standard of behavior on everyone ?

Or trying to get as many as possible dependent on prescription drugs ?

That. The more they can get people to think something is wrong with them just because they feel normal emotions, the more drugs they can sell them. Any of you ever read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World? The "soma" effect of numbing out all emotions and never feeling anything except dim bliss, that's what they seem to be pushing everyone towards. (That and the relaxing of the 'rules' about sexuality, the openness with which it's treated now and the way people just sleep with whoever they feel like, whenever they feel like it. Startlingly like the book.) Easier to control the masses that way. It's insane, I tell ya. I'm not normally a conspiracy theorist, but I'll be damned if it doesn't seem to get more and more 'taboo' to act human every year.

Grand Master

SirEvan

Posted
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Both Shyness and Grieving are natural human emotions. What the ****...

not when it prevents you from being a functional person. Being a little nervous when trying to talk to a cute girl/boy...sure. Being shy to the point that you avoid any social situations, or are petrified to talk to new people...illness.

Grieving on the other hand...wtf.

Grand Master

Glassed Silver

Posted
Posted

:o

I'm rather shy. What should I do now? :cry:

Stay calm, who gives a flip what some book says.

You are who you are, that's what matters.

When you have problems in your life, then start looking for a reason.

Glassed Silver:mac

Grand Master

FMH

Posted
Posted

Stay calm, who gives a flip what some book says.

You are who you are, that's what matters.

When you have problems in your life, then start looking for a reason.

Glassed Silver:mac

Awww, you're so nice. I was joking, though not about the shy part. It's true.

But classifying it as an illness, that's so strange.

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mollick2

Posted
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Being shy to the point that you avoid any social situations, or are petrified to talk to new people...illness.

That's not being shy. That's Social Anxiety, which is already a recognized disorder.

This is ludicrous, to think if I was born just a decade later I would probably be told that I have a mental illness because I don't talk or interact with others enough. That just ****es me off.

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