Message to the APA

I believe the DSM has set back the real diagnosis and treatment of Depression and Anxiety for a 100 years. Freud and Selye were right on the money. The damaged ego is the basis for all psychiatric disorders including the addictive ones. A case can be made for cognitive therapy and corrections of dissociations and distortions that will work for all disorders. The chemical theory and the use of huge amounts of drugs were off the mark. The ancients knew the truth. You can tell this from biblical and other sources including the school of Hippocrates. And some psychiatrists have known the truth for years as exemplified by simple teachings done by a British psychiatrist and John Cleese. Freud was a man of his time, as was Mesmer and Hippocrates and de Sade and Jesus of Nazareth. But they were all unanimous in their logic. Adler and Jung also knew the truth.

This message was sent to the American Psychiatric Association who publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, on the desk of every psychologist and psychiatrist, almost like a bible. It fragments the human psychological condition into symptoms and signs and syndromes without paying attention to the patient as a whole. I sent the message from the APA website as a note to the psychiatrists as was set up by the site. It implies that the heavy enforced use of drugs is off the mark. A loving partner or mentor is what the patient needs and is absolutely what the psychiatrist does NOT provide. Cognitive and behavioural modification therapist and even EMDR therapist are much safer and effective in ending up with a "logical" patient, if that's possible. If it's not possible and drugs are used, the suicide rate is always higher with all the drugs, as all the recent studies show. It's about time that outcomes are as strong a consideration over short term benefits, with regard to the choice of therapies in any patient with any set of signs and symptoms and any tagged diagnosis. The DSM is more about satisfying insurance companies and physicians budgets than it is about patient's real problems.

Thanks for listening to a 70 year old patient who is a retired physician who did psychotherapy.