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Dear David,
Thank you for being prepared to do the work to add a critical voice. Over the past 20 years neo-liberals have legitimated a series of 'syndromes,' using them as an evidentiary base to justify Industrial, Welfare and Family Law "reforms" which created a massive pool of cheap labour for jobs without rights or security here in Australia. 'Syndromes' have also been cited post-hoc to silence those who were disadvantaged or harmed by the legislative changes and the coercive labour strategies they contained. Many of these 'syndromes' are based on dodgy science, or simply presented as part of a capitalist, paternalistic, aggressive agenda without any attempt at justification (absolute power).
Please address the mumpsimus knows as "Parental Alienation Syndrome" in your paper. It has been cited for inclusion in the DSM-V and used to legitimate violence against women and children in the United States (where it originated) and in Australia, where it was transplanted to serve John Howard' legislative agenda. The wealthy lobbyists who supported him have been trying to get "Parental Alienation Syndrome" into the DSM for a number of years.
Here is an excellent paper written against PAS.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=910267
Have also included my chapter on its effects in Australia. Thank you for including PAS in your critique. Am sure you have seen the following article:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/disorders-diagnosed-to-suit-any-condition-20111203-1ocd4.html
which touches on the gendered bias, violence and otherisation implicit in many of the new 'syndromes.'
Dr. Katie Thomas
Telethon Institute for Child Health Research
PO Box 855
WEST PERTH 6872
Western Australia http://www.ichr.uwa.edu.au
Email: [log in to unmask]
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-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List on behalf of David Fryer
Sent: Tue 06/12/2011 4:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: DSM 5
Thanks again, Richard.
I am grateful to have any critiques of DSM pointed out but what I am really interested in are effectively critiques of DSM V which are not at the same time implicit or explicit endorsements of other forms of psy and their organisations and institutions which are equally problematic (though less recognised as problematic) and which do not simultaneously endorse other systems of oppression (such as apparatuses which disable or heterosexism) and do not simultaneously endorse modernist science. 'Critiques' of DSM V from the APA, BPS, APS and 'critiques' of DSM V from Humanist Psychology or Cross Cultural Psychology or Cisgenderists or psychometricians are all - for me - critiques from standpoints as problematic as DSM. Of course that raises the question as to whether a critique from a community psychology standpoint would be as problematic. I believe it would be as community psychology seems, to me, just the version of psy ideal for our re-constitution
and re-subjectification as compliant co-constructors of contemporary neo-liberal regimes and so I am most interested in critiques which go beyond community psychology too i.e. post community psychology critique.
. . . ish . . .
David
________________________________
From: Richard Pemberton <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, 6 December 2011, 2:51
Subject: DSM 5
>
>
>
>The ill fated DSM 5 provides a real opportunity to organise and advance critical perspectives and paradigms? I got this helpful summary via Japan http://www.apadivisions.org/division-32/publications/newletters/2010/01/dsm-v.aspx . The International Cross Cultural Psychology Association is apparently also thinking about critiquing it. This is important given that the drug companies are working hard to globalise reductionism. Think of how much Ritalin you could sell in China. Alongside this, most of the new brand psychological therapies have programmes running in developing countries. EMDR in Palestine. IPT in Rwanda/Uganda etc.
I think the DCP here is free to speak its mind about DSM 5 as most of its members are in the NHS and are not yet locked in to insurance industry funding for not existent conditions. Peter Kinderman who has sadly just stood down as Chair of the DCP decided to break free of the bureaucracy and apolitical consensus inside the BPS and just got on with speaking out. Hopefully this will continue now he is no longer chair. I suggest the Section should follow his example.
With regard to DSM 5 I begin to sense something of a tipping point starting to emerge. To misquote Mary Boyle it might just be possible to make the world come back - not that it ever really went away.
>
>
>Richard
>
>
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>
>On 27 Nov 2011, at 03:01, Gavriel Ansara wrote:
>
>David,
>>
>>The official BPS statement against DSM V cites Jacqui Dillon and Jo Moncrieff, both well-respected critical voices, and is surprisingly critical for a document promoted on the main BPS site. It is well worth a read:
>>
>>http://apps.bps.org.uk/_publicationfiles/consultation-responses/DSM-5%202011%20-%20BPS%20response.pdf
>>
>>The statement contains gems like the following:
>>"The Society is concerned that clients and the general public are negatively affected by the continued and continuous medicalisation of
their natural and normal responses to their experiences; responses which undoubtedly have distressing consequences which demand
helping responses, but which do not reflect illnesses so much as normal individual variation."
>>
>>and also this: "...we have more concerns than plaudits. The putative diagnoses presented in DSM-V are clearly based largely on social norms, with 'symptoms' that all rely on subjective judgements, with little confirmatory physical 'signs' or evidence of biological causation. The criteria are not value-free, but rather reflect current normative social expectations."
>>How BPS, which recently invited some key pathologising figures like Ken Zucker to give a keynote for the clinical division, has made this rather striking shift is unknown to me. I will say that this statement is the first thing I've read from a mainstream psychological organisation that ever made me want to join.
>>
>>Gavi
>>
>>On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 2:30 AM, David Fryer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>Dear All,
>>>
>>>Is anyone aware of an effective statement written from a critical psychology standpoint on the proposed revisions to DSM V already in the public domain? I am aware of the open letter by Society for Humanistic Psychology, Division 32 of the American Psychological Association in alliance with a host of other bodies (see below end of this email) but I am looking for a more radical i.e. ideologically progressive statement than the open letter in order to find or put together a statement of critique. Such a critique would not only draw attention to the appalling specifics of oppression achieved by new proposed developments of the DSM ('paraphilic coercive disorder", "gender incongruence" etc. but demand a thorough rejection of DSM type psy complex technologies which individualise, decontextualise, pathologise, essentialise and biologise complex material-political-discursive matters, create new markets for Big Pharma and extend social
injustice by 'othering' manifestations of diversity. Very likely - hopefully - several such critiques exist already, some no doubt written by List members - please pass on details.
>>>
>>>David
>>>
>>>Society for Humanistic Psychology, Division 32 of the American Psychological Association in alliance with:
>>>--Division of Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology (Division 6 of APA)
>>>--Division of Developmental Psychology (Division 7 of APA),
>>>--Division of Clinical Psychology (Division 12 of APA),
>>>--Society of Counseling Psychology (Division 17 of APA)
>>>--Society for Community Research and Action: Division of Community Psychology (Division 27 of APA),
>>>--Division of Psychotherapy (Division 29 of APA),
>>>--Society for the Psychology of Women (Division 35 of APA),
>>>--Division of Psychoanalysis (Division 39 of APA),
>>>--Psychologists in Independent Practice (Division 42 of APA)
>>>--Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, and Transgender Issues (Division 44 of APA),
>>>--Society for Group Psychology and Psychotherapy (Division 49 of APA),
>>>--Society for the Psychological Study of Men & Masculinity (Division 51 of APA),
>>>--Division of International Psychology (Division 52 of APA),
>>>--Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (Division of the American Counseling Association)
>>>--Association for Humanistic Counseling (Division of the American Counseling Association)
>>>--The Association for Creativity in Counseling (ACC, Division of the American Counseling Association)
>>>--Association for Adult Development and Aging (AADA, Division of the American Counseling Association),
>>>--Counselors for Social Justice (Division of the American Counseling Association),
>>>--American Rehabilitation Counseling Association (ARCA, Division of the American Counseling Association),
>>>--The Association for Women in Psychology,
>>>--The Association of
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues in Counseling (ALGBTIC)
>>>--Society of Indian Psychologists
>>>--National Latina/o Psychological Association
>>>--The Society for Personality Assessment,
>>>--The Society for Descriptive Psychology,
>>>--The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP),
>>>--Association of Counseling Center Training Agencies,
>>>--Psychologists for Social Responsibility,
>>>--The Constructivist Psychology Network (CPN),
>>>--The Taos Institute
>>>--Saybrook University
>>>--Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility (Section IX of Division 39 of APA),
>>>
___________________________________
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>>
>>
>>--
>>
>>Gávi
>>--
>>Mr Y. Gavriel Ansara, MSc, AHEA
>>PhD Candidate & Academic Tutor, Department of Psychology, University of Surrey
>>Visiting Lecturer in Psychology, WISP, University of Warsaw
>>??? ??? ????? ??????? ????
>>http://ansaraonline.com/
>>___________________________________
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>___________________________________
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>
>
___________________________________
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