Trouble Brewing in Psychiatry Field If you've been following the news coming out of the psychiatry field, you know there is trouble brewing among the ranks of psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and researchers as a result of the pending DSM-5, now in its final stages of completion. DSM-5 is the latest edition of what's commonly called the "psychiatry Bible," put out by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Since the APA has been putting out the manual, it has been considered the standard reference for psychiatric diagnosis and treatment.
At the heart of the controversy are a couple of changes which would drastically affect both the general public and those who work in psychiatry jobs. One change would most certainly broaden the scope of psychiatry diagnoses to include a lot of people who, thus far, have been deemed to be experiencing normal emotional stress after the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, or some other emotionally trying event. That doesn't sit well with a good number of doctors who are beginning to believe that psychiatric diagnosis is being overused to include many patients who actually have no real problems. The other significant change is one that would attempt to combine anxiety and depression into a single diagnosis under certain circumstances. This also has some detractors, based on the belief that anxiety is not necessarily a psychiatric disorder and depression is too broad a term. Short-Term Future of Psychiatry Even as the debate rages among current psychiatric professionals over DSM-5, it doesn't appear it will have a significant impact on the short-term future of psychiatry. There will be plenty of medical school students planning on taking psychiatry jobs upon graduation, plenty of private practices still providing psychiatric services and plenty of hospitals bringing on more psychiatric staff to handle patient needs. Patients themselves will still be able to get the care they need in most cases. Any changes that do come about will most likely be felt eight to 10 years down the road. For example, if the new standards for diagnosis end up bringing more people under the umbrella of psychiatric illness, it will most certainly cause an increase in the number of psychiatric jobs available. Medical schools will need to encourage more students to pursue psychiatry as a career while at the same time expanding course work to cover specialties in specific disorders. According to some psychiatrists, it will also mean that pharmaceutical companies will have to work on developing new psychiatric drugs. One of the criticisms often leveled at the profession is that the types of drugs used to treat psychiatric disorders have not kept up with the changes in the field. There is some truth to that, as drug companies really haven't developed much by way of new medicines in quite a number of years. If you're interested in psychiatry as profession, this is an exciting time to get involved. What's decided over the course of the next several months could certainly have an impact on psychiatry jobs by the time you graduate.