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Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest in DSM-5 (2024)

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Re: Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest in DSM-5 (2024)

#71
post #11

When the APA elected Philip Zimbardo, creator of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#Cri... ), as their president ( https://www.apa.org/about/governance/president/bio-philip-zi... ) they lost my trust. He came up with a hypothesis on human behavior, then did everything he could to force the data to reflect that, including coercing volunteers into torturin…

The DSM-5 is from the "American Psychiatric Association". Phillip Zimbardo, and the link you linked to, are the "American Psychological Association". These are two different associations. Theresa Miskimen is the president of the American Psychiatric Association, not Zimbardo.

I hadn't noticed that, but they both look to be helping their members, at the cost of society in general. The American Psychological Association does have a good style guide though, so they have that going for them.

Re: Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest in DSM-5 (2024)

#72
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should be true across medicine. A biotech is best suited to invent new medications for existing diseases consulting with or acquiring in-house talent that knows the disease inside and out. Experts generally benefit from their expertise. Nothing new, shouldn't be controversial.

The thing is, society doesn't have to worry that the guy selling crutches is going to reinvent the definition of a broken leg to increase crutch sales.

We should worry about the guy selling crutches. He could be lobbying against safety standards that would decrease the number of broken legs. We should assume he's acting in his own best interest, and carefully consider if his actions align with our collective best interest. Disclosure is critical.

Re: Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest in DSM-5 (2024)

#73
post #54

> The most common type of payment was for food and beverages (90.9%) followed by travel (69.1%). If I am a doctor on a task force, I'm not wasting my time doing that paperwork. Also, this essentially means that nearly every doctor would be in scope.

It was 14 million for 55 people, wasn't it? That's a lot of coca cola cans.

The food is specified as $89506.7 so, we're talking about less than two grand each.

The "Compensation for services other than consulting" is way more dubious because it's a lot more money for fewer people and it's much greyer in terms of what they were getting for their money.

Re: Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest in DSM-5 (2024)

#74
post #38

What counts as a “disorder” is often not based on empirical evidence but on what is determined as undesirable, maladaptive, or outside the social norm…by Americans. The DSM in many ways represents the worst of so-called social science.

Agreeing that social science is harder than most, I see these definitions as “circle around a set of presentations / symptoms / behaviours “. As somebody who has several circles around them, it doesn’t bother me overly. Historical enforced procedures / incarcerations did, but I understand value of “common language”. In a wildly different area that may or may not resonate with HN, I find similar value in PMP or ITIL - it’s not the One True Way, it is not necessarily a permanent scientific best approach… but it does give people of today a way to communicate with each other across domains, companies, cultures and experiences .

Re: Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest in DSM-5 (2024)

#75
post #38

What counts as a “disorder” is often not based on empirical evidence but on what is determined as undesirable, maladaptive, or outside the social norm…by Americans. The DSM in many ways represents the worst of so-called social science.

A "disorder" is just a collection of symptoms that have been empirically shown to benefit from certain treatments. If someone doesn't think they have those symptoms then they can just not seek a diagnosis or treatment. Nobody is forcing a diagnosis on somebody who doesn't want it.

>> Nobody is forcing a diagnosis on somebody who doesn't want it.

Ahh, you sweet summer child

Tell that to all multiple sclerosis patients that were tortured by psych departments of hospitals before (and after) the MRI machine was created.

Tell that to sleep apnea patients (especially the women, especially especially the younger thinner women in whom they say “it cannot happen to”) that are given a psych diagnoses for seeking treatment for symptoms before sleep disordered breathing issues are ever even brought into question.

The main problem is that DSM diagnoses are indeed forced on people. Usually highly incorrectly, too.

Re: Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest in DSM-5 (2024)

#76
post #39

I wonder how much of the DSM is based on loose correlations, non-replicated or fraudulent research. I get the feeling that we understand how our brains work about as well as we understand how well mitochondria work - - and I see reports of new findings on mitochondria fairly regularly...

It's hard to tell honestly. I studied psychology for two years in uni, and I dropped out rather disillusioned about the field. Some of my least favorite aspects included: - Acknowledgement by our professors that P-hacking (pruning datasets to get the desired results) was not just common, but rampant - One of our classes being thrown in limbo for several months after we found out that a bunch of foundational research…

At least you're working with Rust now.

As someone with zero knowledge of psychology, I'm biased against it. Partly because of my vague impression that psychology tries to fit people to models, rather than viewing models as limited approximations.

For a while I've thought it would be nice to know what results the field of psychology actually has that are trusted. Was there anything at all in the taught content which you liked? I didn't realise the DSM-V was that bad. If research on trans people can be cherry-picked, then does that mean that some reliable research exists?

Re: Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest in DSM-5 (2024)

#77
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The DSM in many ways represents the worst of so-called social science. No. You need to read the thing. The DSM only aims to be a tool to help standardize communication of often nebulous and otherwise ill-defined entities. It says so in the introductory pages. People shouldn’t treat it like a biology textbook, it’s a self-described ontology at most.

But people do. Psychology courses do, with a similar "tool to help standardize communication" line recited robotically and then practically ignored. Most practicing psychologists do as well, to only a somewhat lesser degree. You cannot have an authoritative textbook proscribing definitions, and then expect people to treat them as just "a self-described ontology" with all the nuances and caveats around that just becau…

I’ve had a bunch of neuro/psycho classes and this was always well understood.

This stuff is complicated. People are going to get it wrong. That sucks.

But if you’re going to judge the book, judge it by how it presents itself, don’t judge it by how a third party misrepresents it.

Re: Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest in DSM-5 (2024)

#78
post #39

I wonder how much of the DSM is based on loose correlations, non-replicated or fraudulent research. I get the feeling that we understand how our brains work about as well as we understand how well mitochondria work - - and I see reports of new findings on mitochondria fairly regularly...

It's hard to tell honestly. I studied psychology for two years in uni, and I dropped out rather disillusioned about the field. Some of my least favorite aspects included: - Acknowledgement by our professors that P-hacking (pruning datasets to get the desired results) was not just common, but rampant - One of our classes being thrown in limbo for several months after we found out that a bunch of foundational research…

> One of our classes being thrown in limbo for several months after we found out that a bunch of foundational research underpinning it was entirely made up (See: Diederik Stapel).

I wonder if you can sue for fraud over this. The researcher knowingly deceived academia, and it's foreseeable that students would then pay to study the the false research.

Re: Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest in DSM-5 (2024)

#79
post #38

What counts as a “disorder” is often not based on empirical evidence but on what is determined as undesirable, maladaptive, or outside the social norm…by Americans. The DSM in many ways represents the worst of so-called social science.

But conceptually in the DSM most disorders are defined by whether they cause hardship in the patient's life. Whether that means some disorders would not have to be considered disorders in an ideal society is irrelevant for this context, because people need help navigating the society we have.

Remember that in the US slaves wanting freedom was a mental disorder that made it past peer review: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania
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