Andrew D.
Current Event #4
Topic: Science/Technology
Psychiatric Mislabeling Is Bad for Your Mental Health
Allen Frances
Huffington Post
May 14, 2012
Article length: 1 page approximately
Mental illness can have a taxing affect on an individual. For many the mental illness can be fairly unknown to them as they struggle to understand themselves. It is in the knowledge of understanding and diagnosing one's mental illness that helps with coping and dealing with the illness. Just the knowledge is empowering to encourage a person to work through treatment. Many misdiagnosis, however, are common as well. Misdiagnosis has the opposite affect to someone than diagnosis to an actually afflicted person. The diagnoses that are most often harmfully misapplied are schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, ADHD, and autism. Misdiagnosis cause unneeded worries and lower of self confidence which could serious harm a person. Furthermore the release of DSM 5, manual to diagnosis mental illness, has proven to be extremely inaccurate and will further cause unnecessary harm to people.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allen-frances/psychiatric-mislabeling-is-bad-for-your-mental-health_b_1504750.html?ref=science
As standing, mental illnesses take an immense toll on their victims, particularly since many mental illnesses are little understood by doctors, let alone the general public. It's doubtlessly difficult enough to endure callous statements by others [e.g: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--N7RJEzFe94/T7E7A2zC4AI/AAAAAAAAGSs/AHs9MpjiGV0/s1600/mental-illness-perspective-and-perception.jpg], but to be mislabeled by a medical professional must be heartwrenching. Furthermore, misdiagnoses can also accompany prescription of the wrong type of drug, which can cause harm to the patient. However, the 'bible of psychology,' the DSM-5 is being re-released soon, to include new, and hopefully more accurate diagnoses of mental illnesses.
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