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Archive for the ‘Malpractice’ Category

OK, now it has surpassed irritation:

09 May

From a diagnostic standpoint, why all the Bipolar Mood Disorder diagnoses? I understand that there may be crass financial issues at stake, here, but this is getting ridiculous!

I got a person in who had a psychotic episode due to a certain medication. The diagnosis? Bipolar Mood Disorder. You have GOT to be kidding me! I was stunned.

I am frequently on the stand in court, and I would eat a person who made such a crappy diagnosis for lunch. Already, I have met one in court (a psychiatrist), but he backed down. I would have cleaned his clock if he hadn’t.

This is sheer incompetence. Any such diagnoses ought to be viewed with extreme skepticism. I have made that diagnosis in the past, but only when it was richly deserved (and I could document it). I sometimes just want to say, “Come on, you should know better!). Such incompetence hurts my heart and that makes me sad.

 
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Posted in Malpractice

 

“Sybil” was a fraud

18 Oct

I guess we should have known that. But it’s true. Of course it was all a hoax, a diagnosis du jour kind of thing, with real victims. It was  blatant hoax, geared to aggrandize and enrich certain people. There’s a reason you don’t see that diagnosis now–it was never there in the first place.

I wish the same thing weren’t happening now, but it is (can you say, “bipolar?”). If you hang around psychology long enough, you see pretty obvious “trendy” diagnoses. Most often they lead to fame and fortune for the “therapist.” Or just fortune.

About 20 years ago I was on a radio show confronting an “expert” on multiple personality disorder. She got so angry and hostile toward me. Yet I was right–this was all a sham. I have been in practice for 20 years and I have never seen a multiple personality. And I know a lot of psychologists who have been in practice longer than I have that have never seen one.

Kind of like “bipolar.” Now I have made that diagnosis and there have been people who richly merited that diagnosis. But it is rare. We can talk another time about how people (especially psychiatrists, but an unfortunate number of psychologists) mistake the chronic mood instability of a Personality Disorder with Bipolar Mood Disorder.

I know that what I have said will upset some people. But I speak the truth.

 
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Posted in Malpractice, Psychology