Last edited Sat May 18, 2013, 05:16 PM - Edit history (1)
Historically clinical psychology has divided itself into various camps/schools/approaches (google history of psychology for an introduction into that). The outcomes of both the APA vote (that adopted changes in the DSM and voted to publish DSM-5 four days from today) and the vote of the UK's Division of Clinical Psychology (that adopted the position the story is based on) are reflections of the balance of political power of the various camps/schools/approaches among the memberships of the APA and the DCP.
Fifty years ago, Kuhn criticized psychology in general as remaining immature because it hadn't found an over-arching paradigm to guide itself. Such paradigms exist in physical science and in biology. In chemistry, the concept of the atom guides both research and explanations. In biology, as Dobzansky said...nothing makes sense except in the light of evolution. For biologists, phenomena as diverse as biochemical activity of genetic expression and biotic diversity of ecosystems all 'fit together' and philosophical orientations as opposed as biological reductionism and biological integrationism neatly reconcile within the paradigm of evolution.
Fifty years after Kuhn's comment, clinical psychology remains without an over-arching paradigm. Which isn't to say psychiatry/psychology has been standing still. In the US, in recent decades the neurobiologists have certainly been on the move employing powerful developments in imaging and molecular biology. Recently that has become too much political success within the discipline for the liking of clinical psychologists outside of the neurobiological view. The positions taken by NIMH on research funding and Obama on 'brain mapping" are part and parcel of that success. A level of success that is likely to be provoking to the non-neurobiologists and especially so to those whose views are opposed to structural/physiological reductionism.
Despite protestations within the quote, the Guardian story can't be extracted from the conflict/struggle within psychology. Critical reading is important to understanding this story and other stories dissing the DSM-5 and biological/medical approaches to psychology. Critical reading requires considering both what and how something is said, and just as importantly what is selectively not said at all.
Just as politics has indicative buzzwords, so too does psychology. Understanding where the comments in the story come from require running down which groups use which buzz words. The link below is to a PowerPoint that includes criticism of the medical model, a.k.a. disease model, of clinical psychology. That PP will give the viewer some insight into the rhetoric of the conflict among the "schools".
There is also information behind this story that is going unsaid...left in between the lines if you will. The article is critical of indexes of mental illness such as the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) and the ICD (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems) but the article doesn't mention and isn't at all critical of the PDM (Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual). Is that just a coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. Granted, it's always a risky thing to make specific claims about intentionality and meaning of that which goes unsaid. But, just as sculpture is understood by the 'negative space' it defines, point of view is also enriched by understanding what is not said and what is endorsed by not being included in criticism.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=psychodynamic%20criticism%20of%20medical%20model&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.howiefine.com%2FHealth%2FHealth%2520Week%25203%2520Health%2520Models%2520cont.pdf&ei=EW-XUZLgKKmuyQGWv4HwDA&usg=AFQjCNEHTblAQO7GC-m0C-6DJ1a0RvcHOw
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