Archive for the ‘DSM’ Category

Facebook Face Offs

Friday, June 25th, 2010

A couple of days ago I was lambasted on Facebook.  While I went with it posting candidly, it got rather insulting.  Still, I kept my comments honest.  Sadly, they were not appreciated.  Moreover, my expertise and credibility were challenged.

Part of that challenge was because I was employing or had “invented” “new terms”  that “had not been accepted,” yet.  Actually, I have been inventive.  I use the term “Positive Projective Psychology” and the terms “Negative Projective Process” and “Negative Projective Psychology” to differentiate my perspective from the common clinical practises of the day–which I consider sub-par treatment!  So, I am guilty as charged.  Those are new concepts and they are mine.

Also, I use advanced concepts which have not been heard much.  In part, this is because I am ahead of the curve.  An example of this is Bipolar Disorder Type III.  While this is not is use yet, you’ll hear about it if it makes it past the hurdles in committee formulating the new DSM-V.  I heard about Bipolar Disorder Type III three years ago.  It is a significant development in that it is a bold-faced admission that psychiatric medications cause permanent mental illness!

It bothers me that I was attacked but then those who attacked me, don’t know me.  In fact, they don’t know anything!  I was called a “narcissistic.”  I guess everyone thinks they are a psychologist or they can practise psychology.  I wish I had a little more narcissism in me but I am the way I am, as God intended me.

My middle initial should be “G” because I have been gullible.  It took me years believing in what I was taught in school to realize what a farce my field was (and is) and how much damage clinical psychology (as practised today) is doing to our society.  I owe the people of Mississippi a lot but that debt has been discharged fully in my service to those wonderful folks at low pay for several years and that was time well spent. 

It was inside the walls of Arizona’s maximum security prisons that I honed my craft and developed quick and concise skills of intervention with those who needed my services most.  They may not have been deserving but I was saving lives–the lives of those on the outside as my murderers, rapists and thieves were released back to society. 

Had I been more narcissistic, I might have not worked there and gone into private practise and still have a license and a practise today.  Maybe I would have published and become better known but I would never have developed the razor sharp skills of intervention and the insights in psychology I have.

I regard my contributions to the field of psychology and the body of scientific knowledge as minor, but I know the best psychology and psychologists.  The most significant contributor of our time is Steven Hayes, Ph.D. and his “Acceptance & Commitment Therapy,” the most advanced form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), also known as ACT.  Dr. Hayes has answered most of the questions B.F. Skinner asked in 1952.  I am proud to have had Steven as a guest on my Talk Radio Show “Giving Psychology Away.”

These days I am struggling.  When you get to the level of consciousness I have, you see clearly what is going on and the trends are alarming.  However, there is solace for me in knowing that I am in the latter half of my life.  I have seen some incredible inventions.  I remember the invention of the ball point pen.  What a breakthrough that was!  The computer had already been invented but transistors came on the scene shortly after I was born.

But I have also seen the rise of the audacity of man.  A puny little man who challenges God!  And the foolishness grows.

I was born into a private family that was going military.  Because of the shelter that provided, I saw our country as it was during its Golden Days and the Golden Age of the United States of America has passed so long ago that few remain alive to tell of it and no one wants to hear about it. 

Still, what we saw, witnessed and lived were not our best days.  We were not at out best.  A simple reading of the newspapers of colonial times reveals a far more educated population.  The average colonial citizen was a genius compared to those our institutions of higher learning of today produce with doctorates.  I have seen “inflation” and “degradation” in our educational system. 

It is all corrupt, controlled by an elite we do not see.  We do not know.  And we are complacent to let the status quo go on unimpeded while it slowly destroys US and plans our further enslavement.  They already have our minds but this captivity is not that different from the exiles of the Jews to Babylon. 

Moreover, we are beholden to the same group of repugnant worshippers of power.  Power given from the following of Lucifer and making deals with the devil.  The fight between Good & evil (sic).

Diagnostic & Statistical Manual DSM Series Part II ~ The Demise of Care: A Comparison of “Negative Projective Psychology” and “Positive Projective Psychology”

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

 

The current DSM is the DSM IV-TR in which “TR” stands for “Text Revision.”  The most significant change between the DSM IV and the DSM IV-TR is that a new criterion was inserted almost universally into every category of major mental illness:

 

Denial of having a mental disorder or a mental illness became a bonafide criterion for diagnosing the client with mental illness.

 

That may not seem so odd but it is subtle.  Now, if a person claimed they were healthy, that “denial” counted as a mark in the check list finding that person mentally ill!

 

Thus, the entire field of mental health became self-serving and self-centered.  Rather than rely upon the client complaining & requesting our help, we were and are going to find them mentally ill and in need of our services, no matter what.  Whether they need our services or want them, matters not.  All that matters is what we as “experts” say. 

 

Such a move (to the “TR”) further strains credibility and reveals that what passes for mental health treatment today is nothing more than projecting negative diagnoses and labels upon less sophisticated, helpless and vulnerable persons who are unable to defend themselves from the overwhelming onslaught of the “experts,” from the numbers and shear size of the community of mental health treatment providers. 

 

It is a stacked deck against which no one prevails.  While those in cushy positions making larger salaries may think they are helping their fellow man, all they are really doing is helping themselves by riding on the backs of those upon whom they cast their labels, if you will, upon the backs of those upon whom they ‘cast their spells.’

 

Gee, maybe psychology really has become a field dominated by women.  Dare I say witchcraft?  Because

 

most of the professionals I see today, old and young alike, male and female alike, don’t know what they are doing!

 

This is why I call the practice that prevails today “Negative Projective Psychology” and why I have come up with the term “Positive Projective Psychology” to contrast the errors made across the field which cause so many in our country to suffer. 

 

A tell tale sign of negative practice is a practitioner who claims that ‘therapy is “hard” and it is “stressful” for the practitioner.’  Hog wash!  If it is difficult for those practitioners, it is because they have been ill trained, poorly equipped and don’t understand the limitations of natural boundaries & empowering and truly helping their clients!

 

Lastly, “liberal” psychologists should not be treating “conservative” clients!  This is because of the value system impasse.

 

Conservatives understand the true meaning and quest for independence and independent functioning, whereas, liberals caretakers invoke dependency and make their patient’s dependent upon them.  They want them coming back so they can make that payment on their air planes, vacations or extra houses. 

 

Liberals do not want their clients’ getter better and leaving them.  In part, it may be an “abandonment issue” for the practitioner!  But it is mostly about keeping the money flowing. 

 

Such is the fate of an industry controlled by insurance companies and subject to mismanagement of motivation on the part of the professionals!  According to one malpractice attorney with whom I consulted, the insurance companies have tainted it all!  The insurance companies have ruined it all!

 

There is no safe place.

 

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual DSM Series Part I ~ Diminished Salaries & The Demise of the Profession of Psychology

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

 

By the time the DSM III R was published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 1987, the field of psychology had been on the way to its demise.  Many would argue that with the publication of the DSM III in 1980 the writing was on the wall.  The “political” rivalries that dominated the work conducted by multiple committees were the beginning of the downfall of psychology as the crown of science. 

 

Certainly, the rise of the American Psychological Association (note:  This is a “different” APA than above.) and its encroachment on the credentialing (accreditation) of colleges and university programs in psychology crested during that same time.  It is odd to observe these forces at work at the same time, but the fact is psychology became more politicized and psychiatry overtook psychology during those years as the profession recognized as the leader in mental health treatment.  During that time the pay of the average psychologist diminished greatly.

 

While liberals, especially feminists, blamed the drastic decrease in salaries to male chauvinism and the field becoming recognized as a field dominated by women who we don’t pay as much as men, the sad realities are a bit different.  Certainly, the profession today has more women than men.  Salaries are depressed for all. 

 

Psychiatry achieved dominance by getting their DSM series recognized and adopted by the entire profession, including psychologists and social workers.  Adoption of psychiatry’s DSM was guaranteed when insurance companies began reimbursing services for disorders coded with DSM diagnoses.  Moreover, the DSM series implied the only real treatment for mental disorders was medication, hence, the rise of the hegemony of the Medical Model and the demise of psychology.

 

The second reality was that the field of psychology did not become a field dominated by women as much as it was affected by the law of supply and demand.  Each year during that decade, the schools and universities were pumping out so many graduates that supply exceeded demand.  Under such circumstances, prices fall naturally.  In fact, on average there were 250-400 graduates each year who could not find suitable post doctoral internships in order to obtain licensure!

 

Today, that mismatch continues and it is not advised that anyone enter the field unless they feel a real “calling.”  In fact, one is likely to make more money over one’s lifetime in nursing with an average investment of four (4) years of undergraduate education in comparison to the additional five (5) years of graduate tuition required to achieve a doctorate.  Remember, most people who begin that quest do not finish.