According to their ethical code...which usually becomes part of a state's licensing statutes...the unethics of diagnosing mental disorders by clinical psychologists is a problem.

Clinical psychology has its roots in psychometrics...the scientific measurement of mental functions. The earliest and most commonly known example of this is IQ testing.

For a Ph.D. in clinical psychology...students had to know and use the scientific literature...then to design and carry out publishable scientific research.

If they couldn't...it didn't matter how caring they were in the clinic. They didn't get a Ph.D. because the Code of Ethics For Psychologists -- Standard 2.04 says clearly...

Psychologists' work is based upon established scientific...knowledge of the discipline.

And the 'disorders' in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)...the diagnostic bible...are not determined by scientific investigation. Scientific knowledge is missing in the diagnostic practice of clinical psychology.

A clinical psychologist diagnoses a 'disorder' by matching symptoms to descriptions in the DSM. Good science requires a standard of what's normal before you can decide what is abnormal. But normal and disordered are never defined to differentiate them. So the extent of any 'disorder' can't be measured.

Despite its requirement to be scientific in its activities...the profession became 'medicalized' and adopted the procedures and the jargon of psychiatry -- which has never claimed to be a scientific discipline. It uses borrowed terms like...mental health...psychotherapy...psychopathology...psychiatric diagnosis. And it often relies on medication to manage symptoms in patients.

Why would psychologists use unethical methods?

Unfortunately the incentives...or pressures...are great for psychologists to use unvalidated diagnoses. Insurance companies...who pay psychologists...and the courts...that use them as expert witnesses...put great emphasis on diagnosis of mental disorder.

How could this affect me?

It wouldn't be such a serious matter...except a diagnosis of psychiatric disorder can have unexpected negative consequences in people's lives. When they don't know who uses diagnostic data or how...people even can lose their liberty based on unvalidated disorders.

If you see a clinical psychologist and you use insurance to pay for psychotherapy...a diagnosis is usually required...and may legally be shared with the insurer's affiliated companies.

This data sharing may have negative results (e.g., denial of employment)...which the therapist may not have explored with you. If not...then your agreement to put diagnostic data on the insurance form was not informed consent.

However, the Code of Ethics For Psychologists requires informed consent to share information (Standard 3.10) by discussing...

1. the involvement of third parties (e.g., an insurance company or credit card company and their affiliates) and limits of confidentiality. (Standard 10.01).

2. by discussing the foreseeable uses of the information generated through their psychological activities. (Standard 4.02)

How do I know psychiatric diagnosis isn't scientific?

With the DSM-III the American Psychiatric Association tried to validate the psychiatric diagnosis of 'disorders'...using scientific methods to answer the question: Would clinicians...independently evaluating the same symptoms...arrive at the same diagnosis?

The results were discouraging. Clinician agreement was very variable. This makes almost all mental health diagnoses arbitrary. But they are put in medical records as facts.

And this arbitrariness infects the next edition of the manual (DSM-V). The physicians candidly assert they may never establish the scientific validity of these 'disorders'...

Limitations in the current diagnostic paradigm...embodied in the current

DSM-IV...suggest that future research efforts...exclusively focused on

refining the DSM-defined syndromes...may never be successful...in

uncovering their underlying [causes].

So, the 'disorders' are...and will remain scientifically unreliable opinion.

You can read about the future DSM-V at the url listed below.

How are psychiatric disorders discovered if they're not scientific?

They aren't discovered...most are created. Committees of physicians (and a few non-physicians) decide...intuitively...what a mental disorder is.

For example...if a child is no good at arithmetic...she may be diagnosed with 315.1 Mathematics Disorder. Difficulty with arithmetic may be due to lack of interest. But that's not a disorder. Or it may be due to neurological problems. Which makes it a genuine medical issue...not an arbitrary psychiatric disorder.

What should I do?

You can remember that psychologists are required to practice from established scientific knowledge. They must have your informed consent to share information...such as a diagnosis. So...lacking those things...you should have concerns in this age of massive government and corporate data bases.

And you should raise any concerns about the unethics of diagnosing mental disorders with your psychologist or other therapist. But first know what their ethical requirements are. The url for psychologists is below. For other professions just type into a search engine "ethics for..." and add the name of the profession.

If you and your clinical psychologist haven't discussed these things...which might make you decide not to use insurance benefits...your relationship may be on vague ethical grounds...which are inadequate to protect you...the consumer...from unwanted consequences.

Can I still see a psychologist if I don't want a psychiatric diagnosis?

Of course. It's very doable. And I'll cover how in another article.

Anxiety, in a controlled level, is a very helpful mechanism. This do you a spot more alert than usual or a spot more prepared since the prospect of failing or losing just lies around the corner. But anxiousness upset is another story. It cripples the individual affected ; it directs him to privacy owed to possible awful result that may originate irrationally or it completely sucks the life out of him through delimiting his normal activities to, say, compulsive yet irrational behaviours which is the lawsuit of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And what's worse, the symptoms of an anxiousness upset could endure for as long as 6 calendar months but when untreated, it could impact a individual for a lifetime.

Anxiety upset is a wide class of temper upsets that look in assorted forms, with assorted symptoms and in a assortment of people. Here are some illustrations of anxiousness upsets that look pervasively in American population.

Panic Disorder

If person have a terror disorder, he may experience like an at hand doomsday is about to take over him, or a sense of internal and external pandemonium is about to clang him or it may also look like he is losing control of everything, realistically or unrealistically.

The nature of terror upset plant like it is something that the patient have lost entire control of. This then bring forths physiological symptoms such as as racing pulse or those symptoms that are usually associated with a individual who is undergoing a bosom attack.

Most patients study of sudden onslaughts of terror disorder. In between onslaughts though, patients seek to restrict the apprehension and anxiousness that it may go on again. However, the more than than they seek to command their fear, the more they go susceptible to being consumed by their fears.

Panic upset could stand up alone or may happen only as portion of a specific mental upset like that of agoraphobia.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive-Compulsive behaviour roots from the privation of a individual to command the anxiousness that irresistible impulse and compulsion can produce. It is marked by grim and very upsetting ideas or irresistible impulses and irrational rites or compulsions. The rites or the compulsions are not enjoyable and people who experience them could not explicate exactly why they make what they do. Also, their irrational ideas usually command them, thus making them experience overly irrational or making them execute planetary and unreasonable behaviors.

For example, people who are obsessed on interlopers may happen themselves locking and relocking their doors respective modern times before they travel to bed. Or if they are obsessed by sources or dirt, they may happen themselves putting alcoholic beverage in their custody a figure of modern times in an hour. On another case, a individual with OCD who is obsessed on societal embarrassment may happen herself in presence of the mirror, arranging and rearranging her do up. Normally, these behaviours come up with senseless ideas such as as the decease of loved one if one is not able to execute the rites well.

At its best, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder could assist supply impermanent alleviation on the obsessive ideas of the patients.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

This upset roots from a traumatic ordeal which appealed as physical injury or as a menace of physical harm. People with posttraumatic stress disorder are easily startled by things that remind them of their terrific experience. They also avoid places, things and even events that may convey back the memories of the specific traumatic incident. Usually, posttraumatic stress upset and its symptoms develop calendar months after the incident and may endure for as short as a calendar month of anxiousness or may go chronic if left untreated.

Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)

This is an anxiousness disorder that manifests when person goes extremely witting and overly apprehensive about normal societal situations. For example, a individual with societal phobic disorder may have got a amusing feeling in his tummy once the twenty-four hours of a societal assemblage occurs. This could also ensue to a chronic and intense fearfulness of being watched and judged by everyone.

Specific Phobias

Phobias are irrational fearfulnesses about something that makes too small or no existent danger at all which normally consequences to irrational behaviors. Park phobic disorders are: fearfulness of heights, fearfulness of flying, fearfulness of closed-in spaces, fearfulness of water, fearfulness of dogs, and fearfulness of just about everything.