United States | News & Politics

Like it or not, psychology is a ever developing science. It is also teeming with academics who like to argue their point, whatever it is. Butting heads is a time honored tradition.

One piece of DSM-IV cluster B he’s referring to is this. The way NPD and BPD are written in the DSM-IV they are mutually exclusive. Not so in the DSM V. In the DSM V the two dx are more nebulous and there can be overlap. The science has changed.

Personality disorders are still heavily argued and discussed such that there will probably be more changes to them when the DSM-VI happens.

I do agree, there should always be a discouragement from armchair diagnosing for the exact reasons he is stating. And why real diagnoses remain with doctors and not randos on the internet. But what Frances states does not extend to denying what appears to be a highly disfunctional problem that has gone even further off the rails after 8 yrs. That does even more people a disservice, especially now. It would also be weird from a guy, who from the title of his book, is going so far as to question the sanity of an entire nation.

You don’t have to ignore the elephant in the room. That’s an active choice. So is not ignoring the elephant in the room. Media spent a lot of time ignoring that elephant, which is probably, in part, why we are on the bad timeline right now. It is also why everyone with at least one functional limb should probably point to it now.

No one was quiet about Biden. Should no one have mentioned the word Dementia after the Trump Biden debate? Would it have been helpful to ignore it, for the reasons Frances states? Where would we be now if dementia hadn’t been heavily discussed?