The participants of this meeting sent a clear message to the DSM-5 developers: The proposed paraphilias, Paraphilic Coercive Disorder, Pedohebephilia, and Hypersexual Disorder, should not be included.
The main arguments are that all three proposed diagnoses lack a sufficient scientific basis and that they are highly likely to be misused in the forensic context, the primary site for their application.
The meeting did not vote on autogynephilia, probably because this diagnosis does not have the same legal ramifications.
It is interesting to note, though that autogynephilia has even less of a scientific basis than pedohebephilia, another of Blanchard's many paraphilias.
See also Paraphilias debate at the annual meeting of the American Association of Psychiatry and Law over at the Asexual Explorations Blog.
Thanks to ACH for the tip!
Your blog is fantastic and I really appreciate you trying to get to the bottom of a lot of the questions and issues surrounding this problem.
ReplyDeleteHas it occurred to you that it might be useful in your studies, particularly seeing as I suspect your blog is starting to gather a bit of a readership, to put up a facility whereby people can anonymously submit their own summary of how they are affected by this, so that (a) other readers can see how their experience of their condition compares to others' and (b) so that you can you can gather a decent sample to look for common threads to draw conclusions from?
From what I've read and from my own experience, I suspect that some of us try to live out part of our fantasy in the real world (which may manifest itself as cross dressing or gender reassignment), whereas others probably never tell anyone and keep it bottled up. Some also wish that their fantasies could be made manifest whereas others wish theirs would just go away.
People writing essays about their life story might be beyond what is needed, but it would be insightful to get a picture of how others experience this phenomenon and what attempts (if any) they make to resolve the conflicts they experience.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI have a reader who suggested he could put up a forum for the collection and discussion of crossdreamer life stories. I'll see if I can get back to him and see what we can do.
MORE NEWS FROM THE FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY BLOG
ReplyDelete"At last month's meeting of the International Association for the Treatment of Sexual Offenders (IATSO) in Oslo, Norway, the vote was approximately 100 to 1 against the controversial diagnosis of 'pedohebephilia,' according to two reliable sources. The lone dissenting voice was a member of the DSM-5 committee."
"...Richard Green, a prominent psychiatrist, sexologist, and professor at the Imperial College of London. Green served on the Gender Identity Disorders subcommittee for DSM-IV, and was a leading advocate for removing homosexuality from the DSM back in the 1970s. In a published critique of the hebephilia proposal, he pointed out the parallels:
'The parody of science masquerading as democracy made a laughing stock of psychiatry and the APA when it held a popular vote by its membership on whether homosexuality should remain a mental disorder. Decreeing in a few years time that 19-year-olds who prefer sex with 14-year-olds (5 years their junior) have a mental disorder … will not enhance psychiatry’s scientific credibility.'"
More here:
http://j.mp/bWYdfW