For all here who are Microsoft Windows savvy PC users, you will likely remember the Windows Vista debacle as I do: Windows Vista was, at its zenith, a nightmarish software-hardware interface that was foisted on consumers, even while it contained massive flaws and an inevitable predilection for failure. The programming gurus at Microsoft demonstrated a new achievement in planned obsolescence, daring to subject captive PC consumers to Vista’s junkyard programmer sensibilities.
Here’s the most concise expression of consumer frustration I found on this subject. I recall one day several years ago I noticed a sign in the window of the local printing shop while navigating university traffic:
“NOW OFFERING UPGRADE SERVICES FROM WINDOWS VISTA TO WINDOWS XP OPERATING SYSTEM”.
Wow. That made the point for me. Frankly, I seriously considered throwing down a Ulysses S. Grant on their counter to reverse the operating system clock.
Similarly, the upcoming release of the DSM-V ‘s long-awaited changes, has not escaped some stink-hitting-the-fan.
In an April 29, 2013 position article, the National
Institute of Mental Health’s director, Thomas Insel, M.D. had this to say:
“The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” – each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity… Patients with mental disorders deserve better.”
Insel’s and the NIMH’s primary concern about the DSM-V’s ‘validity’
is found in their complaint of a lack of credible, clinical and physiological
research to accompany the diagnostic determinations that the American
Psychiatric Association’s bible define. full article
In his May 4 Psychology Today blog piece on the NIMH’s position, Christopher Lane, PhD states, “what the NIMH is offering as a solution [to] the DSM’s fumbles and errors is not without major problems of its own…”, citing the Institute’s weighted focus on biological and physical components of mental disorders, to the possible exclusion of anecdotal and symptomatic factors. full article
The DSM-V committee has done some serious hacking of their own, excluding Asperger’s Syndrome as a diagnostic term and a diagnostically distinct entity.
In his May 4 Psychology Today blog piece on the NIMH’s position, Christopher Lane, PhD states, “what the NIMH is offering as a solution [to] the DSM’s fumbles and errors is not without major problems of its own…”, citing the Institute’s weighted focus on biological and physical components of mental disorders, to the possible exclusion of anecdotal and symptomatic factors. full article
The DSM-V committee has done some serious hacking of their own, excluding Asperger’s Syndrome as a diagnostic term and a diagnostically distinct entity.
This single-handed swath of the diagnostic sword, has brought confusion and rancor to an entire segment of the Autism Spectrum community of consumers and family members, accompanied by the consternation of many clinical specialists as well.
What DO Asperger’s individuals do now and where will these sweeping invalidations take our community members?
A major focus of concern: funded care and provisions for clinical assessment, adult housing and supportive services. I shudder with trepidation as I consider how the Social Security Administration’s disability determination criteria will ultimately change the daily lives and survival of unemployed and un-accommodated autistics.
While these academicians have their caffeinated-board-room-discussions about the viability of various ‘terminologies’ and ‘clusters of disorders’ such as binge eating , how often do they discuss the outcomes of their pyrrhic positing over our very REAL lives and sustenance?
Now that’s a definition I’d really appreciate a diagnostic determination for. How shall we, the autism community, defend ourselves and define such cerebrally capricious characters?
Perhaps I should start saving my Belgian chocolate bar wrappers to help with documentation for my upcoming disability determination.
