Saturday, May 11, 2013

Around the Web, With the ClinkShrink Article Addendum!



Today is the last day that my novel, Double Billing, is available as a free download.  This promotion has had over 1,700 downloads in the last 4 days.  If you do read it, please write a review.
The link is HERE.

For those who follow the blog Hyperbole and a Half, you may know that blogger Allie has been silent for the last 18 months because of an awful struggle with depression. She's back, I'm glad, Jessie's glad, and the illustrated story of her depression now has 5,000 comments.  I borrowed one of her graphics for this post.  It was hard to decide which of designs was best, so do check them out.

In case you haven't noticed, everyone in every media source is bickering about the DSM-5.  At Shrink Rap, we're patiently waiting.  Here's some stuff to read:
--From the New Yorker last month.
--From the New Yorker this week.
--The NIMH says they are going to use different research criteria, not the DSM-5.
--And PsychCentral talks about what this means.
--Psych Practice is looking at the differences in the old vs the new manual.
--And Psycritic is looking out how the new manual changes autism spectrum illnesses.

Finally, in case you didn't hear the shocking news (sarcasm dripping), the APA emailed out a news alert that an infant's inconsolable crying is associated with a higher risk of post-partum depression.  Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't find this fact to be obvious.  You can read about it in Pediatrics

Oh, no, I almost forgot, ClinkShrink wrote a great article on what it's like to be a psychiatrist in the gang-rule Baltimore City jail.  Over on Clinical Psychiatry News, do check it out. 

7 comments:

jesse said...

For those of you who follow the link to Hyperbole and a Half start by going to a few of the earlier posts, in which Allie Brosh talks about quite a few very interesting things. She was beginning to work on a book. Then suddenly she posts Adventures in Depression and disappears from the web for 18 months, to the concern of her thousands of followers (I am one). Now she is back. While she does not talk (yet) about her treatment she does describe what depression felt like, and what she writes is quite moving.

How does it feel to have no feelings, and to live in a world in which everyone tries to cheer you up? Allie tells us.

Plain Anon said...

Brosh nails (for me) the decision not to kill yourself. Dragging yourself across a desert and you see relief but don't do it, so you turn around and have to drag yourself back across the desert.

Sarebear said...

I found these the other day, parts one and two, and it was so well-described . . . I felt sad that people I know would stop reading if they even started because of a few f-bombs, because they really describe what it is like and counter all the sometimes well-meaning but more often judgmental crap that gets thrown at you.

Best. Description. of Depression. Ever.

mctps said...

Speaking of descriptions of depression, I have one here that goes from melancholy through despair to madness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g22DEKWEDC0

I improvised it before most of that had happened, but in retrospect it provides an appropriate mickey mouse soundtrack to the last several years of my life.

Zoe Brain said...

Re: The DSM-5

Dr. Ray Blanchard on it:

Do you think autoandrophelia, where a woman is aroused by the thought of herself as a man, is a real paraphelia?

No, I proposed it simply in order not to be accused of sexism, because there are all these women who want to say, “women can rape too, women can be pedophiles too, women can be exhibitionists too.” It’s a perverse expression of feminism, and so, I thought, let me jump the gun on this. I don’t think the phenomenon even exists.

Oh for goodness' sake...
This is supposed to be serious, evidence-based etc not a bunch of guys making up stuff.

Blanchard served on the DSM-IV sub-working group for gender identity disorders, which led to him serving as chair of the paraphilia sub-working group for DSM-5.

He's not well regarded by the Trans community. This kind of thing does nothing to inspire confidence that they know what they're doing.

Joel Hassman, MD said...

Read ClinkShrink's piece, I hope that does not paint a target on her back for some of the information relayed in the post.

ClinkShrink said...

I appreciate your concern; my patients are pretty careful not to tell me details and my documentation is quite general. I'm more likely to get threatened over medication demands than gang-related issues, but even that is relatively rare. I've had more security concerns working in an emergency room than I've had working in a maximum security prison.