Hm...from what I can tell, there aren't all that many changes for MDD (recurrent), major depressive episode, or GAD. Which seriously makes me wonder about the current diagnostic reliability...I don't know that there's any reason to think that the DSMIV-TR was allowing people to be diagnosed "correctly" any more than the DSM V will. Or that that the current CDC numbers are any more accurate, you know?
I am always skeptical of those numbers on mental illness. I know that tons and tons of people struggle with their mental health at some point. I guess where I differ from the stats makers is that I see a difference between the majority of those people, and those who have very serious life long struggles (who I suppose they would call severely and chronically mentally ill). I just see it as way too easy to get a diagnosis though, in the sense that I don't think everyone who is diagnosable is necessarily "mentally ill" at all. Now, I don't think that's a bad thing, because it gets people access to services they wouldn't otherwise have, and that they may very well benefit from. At the same time, I wonder if when they say things like "x percentage of the population has a mental illness" if that's really reflective of wide spread mental illness in our society, or whether it just means that x percentage of people are having a hard time at any given moment, because we are human and sometimes have hard times. (Anyway, these are just my semi-related rambles, so perhaps I should stop.)
On another side note, I am not looking forward to having to learn the DSM V (as a MHP) and furthermore am severely confused about why the criteria for a major depressive episode require that there has never been a manic episode, but bipolar I requires that there has been a MDE, but how can there have been if bipolar I also requires a manic episode. Maybe I'm missing something...
Re: #1
I am always skeptical of those numbers on mental illness. I know that tons and tons of people struggle with their mental health at some point. I guess where I differ from the stats makers is that I see a difference between the majority of those people, and those who have very serious life long struggles (who I suppose they would call severely and chronically mentally ill). I just see it as way too easy to get a diagnosis though, in the sense that I don't think everyone who is diagnosable is necessarily "mentally ill" at all. Now, I don't think that's a bad thing, because it gets people access to services they wouldn't otherwise have, and that they may very well benefit from. At the same time, I wonder if when they say things like "x percentage of the population has a mental illness" if that's really reflective of wide spread mental illness in our society, or whether it just means that x percentage of people are having a hard time at any given moment, because we are human and sometimes have hard times. (Anyway, these are just my semi-related rambles, so perhaps I should stop.)
On another side note, I am not looking forward to having to learn the DSM V (as a MHP) and furthermore am severely confused about why the criteria for a major depressive episode require that there has never been a manic episode, but bipolar I requires that there has been a MDE, but how can there have been if bipolar I also requires a manic episode. Maybe I'm missing something...