Misdiagnosed Children

In pop culture Bipolar Disorder is described as someone quickly switching emotions. The term gets flown around easily without evidence of the alleged diagnosis. This publication changed my perspective on mental illness due to always hearing society's opinion on the phrase. Kay’s experience shows an individual who suffered tremendously behind doors that no one else could relate to, having episodes last days to months not switching every minute like society's stereotypes. It is obvious that there is not control and while medication helps, there is a significant consequence when missing treatment. Additionally, material learned within this book can help fundamentally determine someone suffering this illness. For example, if someone has manic highs and lows that force them to change their daily lifestyle for a period of time and developes changing impulsive decisions there could be an underlying illness. Even though there are few details that can fall into the category of Bipolar, it is still rare and unless diagnosed by a doctor one should never jump to conclusions about another

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is currently the most frequently used way of standardizing and defining psychological disorders. However, the classification systems such as DSM have advantages and disadvantages. The major weakness of DSM is that it judges symptoms superficially and ignores other possible important factors. The major strength of DSM is that it enables categorization of psychological disorders.

The strengths when working with clients on a medical model perspective is that the use of the DSM provides a common language to use in the medical community. The DSM provides reliability and structural guideline to each mental disorder. The structural guidelines in the DSM provide an organized list of criteria and specifiers to help determine the severity of the mental disorder. When diagnosing a client, there are many similar signs and symptoms to each mental disorder; thus, the DSM provides the clinician information about differential diagnosis, prevalence, possible co-morbidity, age of onset, and progressive development of symptoms. Hence, focusing on the medical model and using the DSM can be beneficial to both the client and the clinician providing treatment.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has a number of features. First of all, every disorder is identified using a name and a numerical code. In addition, the manual provides the criteria for diagnosing each disorder as well as establishes subtypes of a disorder and examples that would illustrate the disorder. The manual goes further by addressing the typical age of onset, culturally related information, gender-related information, prevalence of a disorder, typical clinical course of a disorder, typical predisposing factors of a disorder and genetic family patterns of a disease (Summers, 2009). The DSM-IV is a tool that is used by mental health practitioners and social service workers. As has been demonstrated

While reading over the introduction to the DSM-5 I was impressed. I have never looked at any DSM or really any mental health disorders thus far in my studies. I was mostly impressed with the strive to continue making the DSM more useful and understanding. Some things that are in the introduction to the DSM-5 that caught my attention was that the Task Force was very involved in trying to find a balance between the different disorders without confusing them together (p. 5). Another point that I found important was that the overall goal for the DSM-5 was “the degree to which two clinicians could independently arrive at the same diagnosis for a given patient” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 7). This is a strong reasoning to improve the DSM and I am actually stocked that it took this long to change things because Robert Spritzer (a psychiatrist of the twentieth century who became have a strong part in developing the DSM-III and the DSM-IIIR), back in 1974 noticed the central issue being the problem of diagnosis and psychiatrists not being able to agree on the same disorders (Spiegel, 2005).

The reading offers lessons about the diagnosis of bipolar disorder primarily. To a reader, placing emphasis on Jamison’s diagnosis can lead to answers about curing the condition, which is the goal of any interested individual. It is worth noting that Jamison was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder. Such an assertion follows her own revelation that she suffered from the condition often, and in a long periodic duration while growing up (Jamison, 1995). Further, bipolar II disorder is characterized by instances

According to the video's statistic, the diagnosis of bipolar disorder increased to four thousand percent during the last decade. This labeling process seems to be almost a medical crime, where modern "Walter Freemans" easily manipulate and experiment the biochemical processes in the developing child's brain by using strong mood stabilizers and antipsychotic drugs. Nevertheless, it puzzled me why so many doctors do not want to start with a mild therapeutical approach. For example, in many other countries treating childhood's behavior problems with pharmaceutical substances is still almost a nonexistent practice. Instead of medications, other therapies are offered through special programs in school or kindergarten, where children learned to develop coping mechanisms.

The controversy and criticism surrounding the DSM -5 models has raised questions about its credibility and has raised concerns from the public on the reliability and effectiveness. Problems with this classification system is the attempt to promote preventive psychiatry by introducing how

Also in the Introduction a brief history of the DSM-5 is mentioned along with DSM-5 Revision process, Proposals for Revisions, DSM-5 Field Trials, Public and professional review, Expert Review, Organizational structure, Harmonization with ICD-11, Dimension Approach to diagnosis, Developmental and lifespan considerations,

There are many children and adolescents with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and some adolescents have substance use disorders. Of many substances, besides alcohol, cocaine is a common use among the human population. However, there are strong possibilities that psychiatric doctors or counselors can misdiagnose ADHD and cocaine use disorders based on the DSM-V. Some doctors misdiagnose children and adolescents with ADHD leaving the nation either over diagnosing youth with ADHD which lead to high amounts of medication and some doctors misdiagnose those with substance use disorders such as cocaine use with ADHD, and some are diagnosed with comorbidity and would need more therapeutic treatment and prescribed medication. These incidents

Bipolar disorder is typically a condition that affects people in their late teens and early adulthood. It is usually not thought to affect a child but it is something that, if present at a young age, can seriously affect the way a child grows up. Bipolar disorder affects every aspect of a person’s life and is not as understood as it should be. Researchers are still looking for the cause of this illness and how it can be treated but overall it is a condition that many people are undereducated on and that is something I’m hoping this paper might be able to change for some.

DSM-IV TR, which stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edition), Text Revision was published by the American Psychiatric Association in 2000 and serves as a guide book for many health professionals to diagnose a patient with a mental disorder. It also helps health professionals to determine what types of treatment could be carried out to help the patient. The latest DSM is widely used, especially in the USA and many European countries.1However, it may not be completely followed by health professionals as they know that there are some weaknesses of the latest version of DSM as well. This essay will discuss the strengths and

Bernard Carroll, a former Duke University psychiatry department chairman, stated, “You've got all these young kids running around with this diagnosis (bipolar disorder), yet many of them have never, ever had a manic episode, which is the hallmark of bipolar disorder. Many of these kids have never had anything other than irritability.” Contrary to Dr. Carrol’s statement it is possible to have a form of bipolar disorder, early-onset bipolar disorder, in which the child does not have manic episodes. Per The Bipolar Child, a website meant to educate parents on early-onset bipolar disorder, “The majority of bipolar children experience a much more chronic, irritable course, with many shifts of mood in a day…”. This account proves that children, who are irritable, may have bipolar disorder, and can be diagnosed pending an appointment with a psychiatric specialist. Kelli Montgomery, a woman whose first child was a stillbirth, was told to take antidepressants by her physicians. She immediately attributed this to the doctors thinking that she had a mental disorder, stating, "I had no mental illness. I had never been medicated. I had not even suggested that I was depressed,” but the doctors were simply trying to help her. Per Fourth-Trimester.com, a website that helps grieving mothers, “The risk for depression greatly increases if there is an associated perinatal loss or other trauma.” This statement proves the doctor’s rational in prescribing antidepressants, but Kelli jumped the

However, the medications are a big part of daily life for people suffering from bipolar disorder. Additionally, it was noticed that people diagnosed with bipolar disorder discussed stigmas and stereotypes toward people with mental illness. Some were scared to tell their friends and family because they didn’t want their friends and family to think of them as “crazy” or “mental”. Lastly, as mentioned above with the medications, treatment of bipolar was not fully mentioned in the film. Some people discussed taking medications and one lady did holistic treatments.

The DSM itself states “diagnosis require clinical judgment (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 19) indicating the fact that two therapist may see things differently. This concept would have to be considered a weakness as consensus is key validity and reliability of diagnosis and subsequent treatment. The article goes on to discuss the idea that the diagnosis of mental illness is more of an art form than a scientific process (Zur & Nordmarken, 2016). Finally, the most harsh factor against the DSM-5 is the outcry by leading professionals. The article points out that the chairman of its predecessor the DSM-4 Dr. Allen Frances was a critic of the DSM-5 from the very beginning. Change on any level is difficult so for Dr. Frances to urge caution is one; however, for him to say “this is the saddest moment in a 45 year career” to the American Psychiatric Association’s approval of the DSM-5 is troubling. Dr. Frances is not alone is his objection to this text. The director of the National Institute of Mental Health; Dr. Thomas Insel joined the opposition stating he will drive his organization’s research away from the DSM-5 (Zur & Nordmarken,