The Tail that Wags the Dog: DSM-5 (cartoon)

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly (REVIEW); BarnesandNoble.com

Better living through poison and pricey pharmaceutical-grade chemicals (weheartit.com)

DSM-5 is the most comprehensive and current resource for rich mental health clinicians.

 

BAD: Yohimbe, cannabis, rock 'n roll...

There is a new edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). It is used by clinicians and researchers to diagnose and classify mental disorders.

But its main function has become a means of getting insurance companies to pay for outlandish pharmaceutical treatments for ALL kinds of things.

You're CRAZY if we vote and say that behavior is an official "disorder" included in the APA Bible, the manual used to diagnose who is and isn't bonkers. Homer Simpson found out when he asked, found out how it is decided just who is "INSANE" and who is not. The diagnosis was actually quite elegant.

(FOX TV) Homer and Michael Jackson institutionalized for being different

GOOD: Viagra, Valium, and harp Musak...

This new revision, fifth in the bestselling series, is the product of more than 10 years of effort by hundreds of international "experts" in all aspects of mental health -- not least of which is getting paid, and making a maximum profit with the help of drug peddlers (Big Pharma agents, not the grimy kind in suburban schools and flashy clubs). 

 

Their dedication and hard work have yielded an "authoritative" volume you can take to your school official (any counselor, nurse, occupational or rehabilitation therapists, social workers, forensic, and legal specialists) and demand Ritalin or other pharmaceutical-grade forms of speed and horse, super-addictive amphetamines and narcotics of all kinds.

DSM-5 defines and classifies "mental disorders" in order to [maximize and] improve diagnoses, treatment (never profit-stifling "cures," only "ongoing treatments"), and research.

 

This manual, which itself is an excellent sedative for those suffering from insomnia, makes not only for a  good snooze read, but also creates a common language for clinicians involved in the diagnosis of mental disorders.

It includes concise and specific criteria intended to facilitate an objective assessment of symptom presentations in a variety of clinical settings -- inpatient, outpatient, partial hospital, consultation-liaison, clinical, private practice, and primary care. So what could be wrong with that?

The problem, at least one of them, is that it implies that these are naturally-occurring illnesses existing in nature, merely being defined by science. The book is the tail that wags the dog. The dog is the pharmaceutical industry, which uses the DSM as a justification for medicating every and any "aberrant," disruptive, or simply inconvenient behavior.

Mmm, Prozac-flavored icing (fluoride)

Any? Yes, any, because there are many "off label" uses for drugs that make them particularly good moneymakers for corporation that manufacture them. Unless, that is, they actually work. One old patented drug was discovered to cure cancer. No one wants to cure cancer; cancer treatments make too much money for everyone involved -- poison makers (look up pharmakos), radiation promoters, wig makers, hospices, hospitals, surgeons, chemotherapists who attempt to poison parts of the body to death without killing the whole body in the process, fast food makers, and so on.

 
The information contained in the manual is valuable to right-thinking physicians and health professionals, not just psychologists.
 
At $149.00 plus tax, DSM-5 is the most profitable and definitive resource for the diagnosis and classification of mental disorders. Oh, and remember to renew your American Psychiatric Association membership dues; we take them and make more money for you until we're all happy. And keep this review under your hat, NOT for release to the general public. Buy your copy today! (No refunds).

• "Dumbass" (Ai Weiwei's heavy metal protest video)

I had Asperger’s syndrome. Briefly.

Benjamin Nugent (Op-Ed Contributor), New York Times

For a brief, heady period in the history of autism spectrum diagnosis, in the late ’90s, I had Asperger syndrome.

There’s an educational video from that time, called “Understanding Asperger’s,” in which I appear. I am the affected 20-year-old in the wannabe-hipster vintage polo shirt talking about how keen his understanding of literature is and how misunderstood he was in fifth grade.

The film was a research project directed by my mother, a psychology professor and Asperger specialist, and another expert in her department. It presents me as a young man living a full, meaningful life, despite his mental abnormality.

“Understanding Asperger’s” was no act of fraud. Both my mother and her colleague believed I met the diagnostic criteria... More

"Orgasm, Inc." (film)

(AstreaMedia) In the shocking and hilarious documentary "Orgasm, Inc." filmmaker Liz Canner takes a job editing erotic videos for a pharmaceutical company during a drug trial. The company is developing what it hopes will be the first Viagra-style drug for women to win FDA approval. But first Big Pharma has to invent a new disease: Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD).

Liz gains permission to film the company for her own documentary. Initially, she plans to create a movie about science and pleasure. Soon she begins to suspect that her employer, along with other medical companies, might be trying to take advantage of women (and potentially endanger their health) in pursuit of billion dollar profits.

"Orgasm, Inc." is a powerful look inside the medical industry and the marketing campaigns that are literally and figuratively reshaping our everyday lives around health, illness, desire -- and that ultimate moment: orgasm.

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For years David Duchovny, as agent Fox Mulder, chased down aliens and told us that we’re not alone. Now he's a sex addict who struggles with the issue in real life. He’s not alone either.

His recent entry into rehab for a self-described obsession with Internet porn has cast a national spotlight on a widely misunderstood issue that affects millions of Americans: sex addiction, specifically compulsive use of Internet-based pornography.

Although the term is commonly used in popular culture, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) does not yet recognize sex addiction as a condition, nor is it listed in their widely used clinical bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. But most experts agree that there are growing numbers of people who find themselves in the grip of compulsive sexual behaviors that are beyond their control — behaviors that seriously damage their lives as well as those of their loved ones.

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What-Buddha-Taught.net

“Inconceivable, recluses, is the beginning of this Samsara. A first point is not known of beings roaming and wandering the round of rebirth, hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving [tanha = lust, thirst, desire, see Buddhist terms]."

"Recluses, which do you think is more, the stream of tears that you have shed as you roamed and wandered on through this long course, weeping and wailing because of being united with the undesir-able and separated from the desirable–this or the water in the four great oceans? The stream of tears that you have shed as you roamed and wandered on through this long course…this alone is greater than the water in the four great oceans…For such a long time, recluses, you have experienced suffering, anguish, and disaster, and swelled the cemeteries” (Assu Sutra, S.15.3).

“There will come a time when the mighty ocean will dry up, vanish and be no more…There will come a time when the mighty earth will be devoured by fire, perish and be no more. But yet there will be no end to the suffering [dukkha = unsatisfactoriness, see Buddhist terms] of beings roaming and wandering this round of rebirth, hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving” (Gaddulabaddha Sutra, S.22.99)

“Through many a birth I wandered in Samsara,

Seeking but not finding the builder of this house.

Painful it is to be born again and again.

“O house-builder! You are seen.

You shall build no house again.

All your rafters are broken.

Your ridgepole is shattered.

“My mind has attained the unconditioned.

Achieved is the end of craving.”

[Builder = craving, lust, desire; house: body (the Five Aggregates); rafters: defilements; ridgepole: ignorance] (Udana Vatthu, Dh.153-154).

This precious human birth
“Recluses, suppose this great earth were totally covered with water, and one were to toss a ring with a single hole in it. A wind from the east would push it west; a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south; a wind from the south would push it north. And suppose a blind sea-turtle swimming therein would come to the surface once every hundred years.

Now what do you think: Would that blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface only once every hundred years, stick his head through the ring with a single hole?"

"It would be a sheer coincidence, Venerable Sir, if the blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every hundred years, would stick its neck through the ring with a single hole."

"It's likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a Tathagata, perfectly self-awakened, arises in the world. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a doctrine and discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world. Now, this human state has been obtained. A Tathagata, perfectly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A doctrine and discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world” (Chiggala Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya 56.48).

So do not waste this precious human birth
Who knows by tomorrow, one may still be living or dead.

Thus reflecting, without procrastinating tomorrow or the day after,

One may incessantly exert right away on this very day

(Uparipan Bhaddekanatta Sutra 226).

“I teach one thing and one thing alone, namely, suffering and the end of suffering.

“Develop a mind of equilibrium.

You will always be praised and blamed,

But do not let either affect the poise of the mind:

Follow the calmness, the absence of pride” (Sutta Nipata).

“Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.”