Dr. Allen Frances, MD: Saving Normal

Thoughts on Record: Podcast of the Ottawa Institute of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

While it is common to hear that we are in the midst of a mental health crisis, a closer examination of the available data strongly suggests that so-called diagnostic inflation may actually be a key contributor to the apparent increase in mental illness. Dr. Allen Frances, MD, author of Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life speaks with host Dr. Pete Kelly, C.Psych around why it's so hard to define "abnormal" in the context of mental health, a historical consideration of the origin and development of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (including human factors - politics, pharma etc. - that have permeated the development of the DSM), how DSM-5 has strongly contributed to diagnostic inflation, challenges and caveats associated with the treatment of mental illness with pharmaceuticals, the importance of psychotherapy in the treatment of mental illness and whether (and how) the DSM might be reformed. Dr. Frances also provides a psychiatrist's perspective on Trump and the psychological and societal factors that have allowed Trump to ascend to power.
Allen Frances, MD, is professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Frances was the chairman of the DSM-IV Task Force and a member of the leadership group for DSM-III and DSM-III-R. He is the author of the award-winning international bestseller Saving Normal, as well as Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump and the reference work Essentials of Psychiatric Diagnosis. He lives in San Diego, California.

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