Psychiatrists question validity of paraphilis in DSM
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- Category: News
- Published on Tuesday, 22 February 2011 10:13
- Written by S. Landis
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Doctor Charlers Moser, one of the psychiatrists working on the DSM-5, put forth a proposal to subject diagnoses with questionable scientific evidence grandfathered into the DSM to the same rigorous standards used by modern psychiatrists. Moser, who works on the paraphilia subcommittee has expressed concern over the abuse of the paraphilia diagnoses by the legal system, according to the Psychiatric Times.
Doctor Moser and Doctor Allen propose subjecting the old diagnoses to a risk benefit analysis that focuses on the harm or risk to the patient rather than the risk to the psychiatric professions. Allen expressed concern over the legal system’s misuse of the paraphilias section and the infringement of a patient’s constitutional rights because they received a diagnosis.
“The DSM-IV approach leaves a major problem unaddressed (and almost unaddressable). Psychiatric diagnosis has the most potential of getting into trouble when it pathologizes social deviance and normality. Dr. Frances's many critiques of problematic DSM-5 proposals deal precisely with these issues, but there is no reason to assume a priori that none of the diagnoses already in the DSM suffer from the same problems,” commented DSM critic Andrew Hinderliteron, of the Psychatric Times blog on February 2nd of this year.
Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder is not included in the paraphilias section of the DSM-IV-
TR, and the condition has existed in various forms and previous editions of the bible used for the psychiatric profession. HSDD has a low cure rate and treatment assumes an underlying cause.
The current wording stresses that a psychiatrist can only make this diagnosis is if a patient is distressed by his lack of desire or if it causes interpersonal problems. A therapist must also rule out other underlying physical or psychological causes for the condition. The disorder occurs in 20% of women and 10% of men, according to Depression-guide.com
Asexuals take issue with the above conditions, although the majority of people who receive this diagnosis are women in sexual relationships. The field of psychiatry has not fully accepted the existence of Asexuality
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