You are here: Home / Archives for APA

American Psychiatric Association’s DSM 5 draft is now available for review

February 10, 2010 By 6 Comments

The draft of the APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 5th edition is now available for review and comment.  

A Message from the DSM-5 Task Force Chairs

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the DSM-5 Development Web site.  This site provides information culminated from over 10 years of revision activities, made possible thanks to the generous dedication of more than 600 global experts in the field of mental health. 

The DSM-5 Task Force and Work Group members are working to develop criteria for diagnoses that not only reflect new advances in the science and conceptualization of mental disorders, but also reflect the needs of our patients. We encourage you to delve into the wealth of information contained within this site to become familiar with some of the advancements in scientific and clinical knowledge that will assist in making diagnoses more accurate, valid, and clinically useful.  We also hope that this knowledge will pave the way for further research in these important areas. 

Your input, whether you are a clinician, a researcher, an administrator, or a person/family member affected by a mental disorder, is important to us.  We thank you for taking part in this historic process and look forward to receiving your feedback. 

David J. Kupfer, M.D., DSM-5 Task Force Chair

Darrel A. Regier, M.D., M.P.H., DSM-5 Task Force Vice-Chair

Sure to be controversial, the Task Force will accept comments until April 20. I will accept comments starting now and never ending…

Filed Under: APA, mental health Tagged With:

APA Monitor on the APA sexual orientation and therapy report

October 7, 2009 By 19 Comments

The current American Psychological Association Monitor briefly reports on the August report from the Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation. Not much new here for regular readers of the blog. The big news in my view was the treatment of religion which did not get as much coverage as the discouragement of change therapies.

The article ends with quotes from NARTH’s Julie Hamilton and me.

Warren Throckmorton, PhD, an associate professor of psychology and fellow at the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College in Grove City, Pa., described the task force’s work as a “well-done effort.”  

“I felt the treatment of religion was very respectful, and in doing so, it created space for clients of conservative religious faith to explore the reality of their sexual orientation, while maintaining their faith commitments,” said Throckmorton, who researches sexual orientation and homosexuality and writes about such issues from a Christian perspective.

Julie Harren Hamilton, PhD, president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), said she appreciated what she described as the task force’s recognition that clients have a right to self-determination, and its respect for religious diversity. But she disagreed with the task force’s main conclusions, and charged that the task force was composed only of members opposed to sexual orientation change efforts. 

“We believe that if the task force had been more neutral in their approach, they could have arrived at only one conclusion, that homosexuality is not invariably fixed in all people, that some people can and do change,” she said.

 Some people may change something but there is little evidence which would allow more than guesses about what the potent elements in any such change might be. The NARTH review found that all kinds of approaches reported some degree of change. Can they all be right? In such a situation, a more plausible guess might be that there was some common element of the clients and/or the therapy that could be involved. And as Jones and Yarhouse suggested in the discussion section of their APA report, perhaps sexual identity is a better concept to consider when discussing categorical change. If someone shifts a Kinsey point or two, one might feel satisfied with this and justified in considering themselves to have changed.

As I have noted, the distance between opposing views may be narrowing significantly.

Filed Under: APA, ex-gay, NARTH, Religion and sexuality, reparative therapy, sexual identity therapy, sexual orientation Tagged With: , , , ,

The APA report and the sexual identity therapy framework

October 1, 2009 By 1 Comment

The recent American Psychological Association task force report on sexual orientation and psychotherapy included several positive references to the SITF. I have archived those on the SITF website and am providing two here with brief commentary.

The abstract of the sexual identity therapy framework (SITF) says

Sexual identity conflicts are among the most difficult faced by individuals in our society and raise important clinical, ethical and conceptual problems for mental health professionals. We present a framework and recommendations for practice with clients who experience these conflicts and desire therapeutic support for resolution. These recommendations provide conceptual and empirical support for clinical interventions leading to sexual identity outcomes that respect client personal values, religious beliefs and sexual attractions. Four stages of sexual identity therapy are presented incorporating assessment, advanced informed consent, psychotherapy and sexual identity synthesis. The guidelines presented support the resolution of identity conflicts in ways that preserve client autonomy and professional commitments to diversity.

 

I think the APA report and the SITF are compatible in many important ways.  They both recognize the difference between attractions, behavior and identity. They both recognize that informed consent is critical and that client may seek congruence with other aspects of personality, other than sexual desire, a distinction made in this segment from page 18 of the APA report: [Read more...]

Filed Under: APA, mental health, NARTH, Professional issues, psychology, Religion and sexuality, reparative therapy, sexual identity, sexual identity therapy, sexual orientation Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The persistent rumor that the APA wants people to change churches

August 29, 2009 By 2 Comments

I addressed it here and now here but it continues.

This morning I read an article on the website of the National Catholic Register by Father Benedict Groeschel, host of Sunday Night Live on EWTN (Catholic network). Father Groeschel is laboring under a significant misunderstanding of the APA report when he writes:

On top of all that, in an almost bizarre ignoring of the purposes of his own discipline, one of the members of the task force that composed the report claimed that people who belong to religions that expect celibacy from the unmarried and monogamy from the married but find such expectations too difficult or onerous should simply change to a religion which requires less of them.

I should say I am pretty sure this is misinformation. I don’t know if a member of the task force speaking for him or herself might have said people should switch churches. I have not been able to find a quote to this effect. However, I do know the APA denied this intent and the APA report does not support the idea that a church switch would be promoted as some kind of easy way out for its own sake. Any switching would be done for reasons based in belief change and could go either direction – from gay affirming to non-affirming or vice versa.

How did Father Groeschel become misinformed? A familiar suspect appears later in the article.

It is necessary to register a strong objection to this recent statement. For valid and reasonable information I suggest the writings of an outstanding researcher and therapist in this area, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, who has long been the inspiration behind the National Association for Research and Therapy for Homosexuality.

Recently, he was quoted in this newspaper pointing out that research used by homosexual activists shows that public opinion regarding homosexuality will change if people believe it is genetic. “To the extent people are not responsible,” said Nicolosi, “their behavior will be tolerated.” (See “Scientists Outing ‘Gay Gene’ Myth,” July 26-Aug. 8.)

More information regarding NARTH and Nicolosi’s work can be found at NARTH.com and JosephNicolosi.com.

I would strongly suggest that Register readers register their protest with the American Psychological Association for what amounts to an abuse of research and demand that the APA distance itself from this pseudoscientific presentation. For those interested, the website for the APA is APA.org.

I actually hope Register readers do contact the APA. When the APA responds that these charges are off the mark and refers people to the actual report, people will find they have been misled.

Filed Under: APA, NARTH, Professional issues, psychology, Religion and sexuality, reparative therapy, sexual orientation Tagged With: , , , ,

Guest blogging tomorrow at US News and World Report

August 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Just a head’s up to watch for the tomorrow’s God and Country Blog at US News and World Report. Yours truly will have an article about the recent APA task force report and the contention that the APA advocates that conflicted people just switch churches if they can’t work out the conflict.

Check out the week’s other guest authors and thanks to host Dan Gilgoff for the opportunity.

Filed Under: APA, Blogkeeping, sexual orientation Tagged With: , ,
« Older Posts

Switch to our mobile site