4 ms·

This isn't really an accurate characterization. It's true that a lot of psychiatrists focus on meds and biological root causes these days but lets not forget th

This isn't really an accurate characterization. It's true that a lot of psychiatrists focus on meds and biological root causes these days but lets not forget that the whole school of psychoanalysis grew out of psychiatry. It's simply wrong to say the whole field is focused on biological issues. Likewise, clinician psychologists use the DSM regularly and do loads of testing, including tests for things like personality disorders (which, again, tend to be diagnosed using DSM criteria). Psychiatrists certainly can do testing but many of them (at least in private practice) refer out to psychologists for it.

mindgam3 8y ago
“lets not forget that the whole school of psychoanalysis grew out of psychiatry. It's simply wrong to say the whole field is focused on biological issues.” That’s why I explicitly referred to “mainstream psychiatry”, rather than the “whole field” as you imply in your inaccurate characterization of my comment. I’ll grant you that the DSM may provide some value for understanding the range of personality disorders at least at a high level. But it’s really messy. Other tools may be more useful for understanding specific disorders, for example the Hare psychopathy checklist. [edit: replaced “testing tools” with “tools” in previous sentence] (note that psychopathy isn’t even listed in the DSM, the closest thing is ASPD - just another indication of how messy and imprecise this entire field of personality disorders is, underneath the veneer of scientific rigor)
- staticautomatic 8y ago
  Do you mean diagnostic tools? The DSM isn't a testing tool.
  - mindgam3 8y ago
    Fixed.
ab5tract 8y ago
Psychoanalysis was considered bringing psychology to the psychiatric profession. Prior to Freud and Jung psychiatrists didn’t even care about the content of delusions and did not consider that anyone diagnosed with an illness could be cured except through physical means such as electroshock therapy.

mindgam3 8y ago

“lets not forget that the whole school of psychoanalysis grew out of psychiatry. It's simply wrong to say the whole field is focused on biological issues.” That’s why I explicitly referred to “mainstream psychiatry”, rather than the “whole field” as you imply in your inaccurate characterization of my comment. I’ll grant you that the DSM may provide some value for understanding the range of personality disorders at least at a high level. But it’s really messy. Other tools may be more useful for understanding specific disorders, for example the Hare psychopathy checklist. [edit: replaced “testing tools” with “tools” in previous sentence] (note that psychopathy isn’t even listed in the DSM, the closest thing is ASPD - just another indication of how messy and imprecise this entire field of personality disorders is, underneath the veneer of scientific rigor)

staticautomatic 8y ago
Do you mean diagnostic tools? The DSM isn't a testing tool.
- mindgam3 8y ago
  Fixed.

ab5tract 8y ago

Psychoanalysis was considered bringing psychology to the psychiatric profession. Prior to Freud and Jung psychiatrists didn’t even care about the content of delusions and did not consider that anyone diagnosed with an illness could be cured except through physical means such as electroshock therapy.