Posted by SLS on July 1, 2012, at 14:58:36
In reply to Why There Has Been an Explosion in Bipolar Diags?, posted by ron1953 on July 1, 2012, at 11:58:45
You and this article are about 12 years too late.
If anything, the diagnosis of BP is now on the decline and seeking a level more representative of the actual occurrence of the disorder.
I don't usually bother with this type of stuff anymore when it is posted. I find it to be nothing more than propaganda to fit an agenda, which, of course, is an irony. One thing though, it is NOT the entire field of psychiatry that uses the fractional naming schema for categorizing bipolar disorder subtypes. It is the naming system of one doctor only - Hagop Akiskal (a devotee of Kraeplin*). His nomenclature has not been embraced by psychiatry in general, despite the fact that much of his work has been very important. The article you cited portrays as fact that Akiskal's naming system is already in general use. This is false. I find the rest of the article to be equally representative of the truth.
* Emil Kraeplin (1856 - 1926) is the person who first described "manic depression" and differentiated it from schizophrenia. So, indeed, Akiskal was aware of the phenomenological advantages of the concept of "manic depression" over "bipolar disorder" when he attempted to produce an all-inclusive diagonistic scheme. I am not a big fan of the fractions, though.
- ScottSome see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.- George Bernard Shaw
poster:SLS
thread:1020594
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120630/msgs/1020621.html