An article was written by William Falk in the Week magazine recently that caught my interest. It seems the American Psychiatric Association has updated the DSM-5 which is a dictionary of disorders/mental illnesses. The importance of the book cannot be overstated. Simply put, to have any medication considered by an insurance company (of course, that may mean that you ONLY have to pay 60-70% of the estimated cost) the illness must first be legitimately identified by professionals in the field. You may be surprised to know that we now have according to Falk, 300 categories of ‘crazy’ as he labels them.In addition, the APA explains that about 50% of the population will fall into one of the 300An article was written by William Falk in the Week magazine recently that caught my interest. It seems the American Psychiatric Association has updated the DSM-5 which is a dictionary of disorders/mental illnesses. The importance of the book cannot be overstated. Simply put, to have any medication considered by an insurance company (of course, that may mean that you ONLY have to pay 60-70% of the estimated cost) the illness must first be legitimately identified by professionals in the field. You may be surprised to know that we now have according to Falk, 300 categories of ‘crazy’ as he labels them. In addition, the APA explains that about 50% of the population will fall into one of the 300 categories sometime in their lifetime!
Personally, there are days when I am sure that percentage is closer to 99.9% and others, when I more graciously would think it may be down to 20%. The important thing to consider is that due to a variety of factors – work, home, background or experiences anyone of us could ‘loose our grip’ for a period of time. If you think about the 50% estimate by the APA you might want to ‘tread a bit more lightly’ the next time someone upsets you or cuts you off in traffic!
We live in an age of wondrous help and support from doctors from all speciality areas- for that we can be grateful. However, the pharmaceutical companies, on the other hand, are more than ready to sell us more and more prescriptions – to ease every ache and pain we have while being quick to advertise on a 24/7 basis on T.V. the latest ‘miracle pill’ with the accompanying ’87’ side effects. I recently visited another country and was absolutely shocked that there was zero advertisements of this kind on their T.V. stations. Funny thing about all of this – generally speaking, their overall population seemed downright healthy!
Life happens to all of us and from time to time we need a little help. It is just good to think about cause and effect.
Have a great day!
categories sometime in their lifetime!
Personally, there are days when I am sure that percentage is closer to 99.9% and others, when I more graciously would think it may be down to 20%. The important thing to consider is that due to a variety of factors – work, home, background or experiences anyone of us could ‘loose our grip’ for a period of time. If you think about the 50% estimate by the APA you might want to ‘tread a bit more lightly’ the next time someone upsets you or cuts you off in traffic!
We live in an age of wondrous help and support from doctors from all speciality areas- for that we can be grateful. However, the pharmaceutical companies, on the other hand, are more than ready to sell us more and more prescriptions – to ease every ache and pain we have while being quick to advertise on a 24/7 basis on T.V. the latest ‘miracle pill’ with the accompanying ’87’ side effects. I recently visited another country and was absolutely shocked that there was zero advertisements of this kind on their T.V. stations. Funny thing about all of this – generally speaking, their overall population seemed downright healthy!
Life happens to all of us and from time to time we need a little help. It is just good to think about cause and effect.
Have a great day!
Just Behind the Door 
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