Below are the names of some psychological disorders. For each one, choose one of the following:
A. This is under formal consideration to be included as a new disorder in the DSM-5.
B. Somebody out there has suggested that this should be a disorder, but it is not part of the current proposal.
C. I made it up.
Answers will be posted in the comments section.
1. Factitious dietary disorder – producing, feigning, or exaggerating dietary restrictions to gain attention or manipulate others
2. Skin picking disorder – recurrent skin picking resulting in skin lesions
3. Olfactory reference syndrome – preoccupation with the belief that one emits a foul or offensive body odor, which is not perceived by others
4. Solastalgia – psychological or existential stress caused by environmental changes like global warming
5. Hypereudaimonia – recurrent happiness and success that interferes with interpersonal functioning
6. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder – disabling irritability before and during menstruation
7. Internet addiction disorder – compulsive overuse of computers that interferes with daily life
8. Sudden wealth syndrome – anxiety or panic following the sudden acquisition of large amounts of wealth
9. Kleine Levin syndrome – recurrent episodes of sleeping 11+ hours a day accompanied by feelings of unreality or confusion
10. Quotation syndrome – following brain injury, speech becomes limited to the recitation of quotes from movies, books, TV, etc.
11. Infracaninophilia – compulsively supporting individuals or teams perceived as likely to lose competitions
12. Acquired situational narcissism – narcissism that results from being a celebrity
The Hardest Science 
Answers: 1. C 2. A 3. A 4. B 5. C 6. A 7. B 8. B 9. A 10. C 11. C 12. B
References:
Officially proposed or discussed for inclusion in the DSM5:
Skin picking disorder
Olfactory reference syndrome
Kleine Levin syndrome
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder
Has been floated but is not under formal consideration:
Sudden wealth syndrome
Acquired situational narcissism
Solastalgia
Internet addiction disorder
There was an epidemic of Kliene Levin Syndrome when I was a psychology undergraduate. It was possibly proposed to DSM by one of our lecturers, who we continually “helped” with their research.
‘Infracaninophilia’ is my new favourite word, even if it isn’t real.
Hi, my name is Lien and I suffer from internet addiction disorder.
Infracaninophilia – The Tartan Army!
DSM’s Mind-Body Catch-22:
I have no idea if this is the right place to question this, but the comical nature of the DSM candidates above got me thinking:
Consider any ‘psychological’ disorder involving one’s own body (example: “Gender Dysphoria”). In those cases where there is a perceived dissatisfaction with one’s own body at the heart of the “disorder”, it would appear there are two clear options. One might alter one’s psychology to accept/conform-to one’s body, or one might propose altering one’s body to meet psychological expectations (for example, through surgical gender-reassignment). But here’s where this becomes a real problem for the DSM.
If changing one’s body may eliminate the “disorder”, then is it a PSYCHOLOGICAL disorder to begin with? After all, one’s psychology remains the same ‘before’ and ‘after’ this cure. And if it isn’t a psychological disorder to begin with, then why is it in the DSM?
GENERALIZED: Possessing any variety of expectations that are not well-satisfied implies some mismatch between mind and world. And if the resulting dissatisfaction proves an obstacle to some privileged vision of the good life (a well ordered, ‘happy’ existence … whatever the DSM authors imagine is the good life), then it may well be labeled and included in some future DSM. But in each such case, the world and the expectations are equally responsible for the mismatch, meaning that changes to either may prove satisfying. And again, in every case where worldly-change relieves dissatisfaction, can’t we then say that there was no psychological disorder to begin with.
The catch-22 becomes apparent when we recognize just how often the world we live in (social, technological, medical, legal, etc.) actually DOES undergo great change — thereby becoming more satisfactory relative to the expectations of many.
Should each such ‘worldly’ change PROVE that the relevant disorder was never psychological to begin with?
Should the mere possibility of such change be taken as proof?
Should the mere conceivability of such change be proof that this is not a psychological problem, but simply one of practical know how (i.e. means to change the world)?
(Note: This applies to a number of the proposed ‘disorders’ above actually.)
And what about wide-spread divergences between expectations and reality? For example, African-Americans in the U.S. in the 1960s seemed widely to suffer from a divergence between their moral-psychological expectations and the realities of their world. Were they all suffering from a civil-rights dysphoria?
Perhaps we should simply accept that there are a host of ways in which we all want the world to be different than it is, and accordingly we are all willing to do much, give willingly, and sometimes suffer greatly in order to bring about the changes dear to our hearts. Some changes will never happen — the world will never be perfectly just, and an bulimic’s self-image will likely never match her body, but which trade offs are worth making, to achieve some greater-approximation of the ideal, cannot be measured in any non-value-laden way, and certainly not by a “statistical manual”.
Anyway, I apologize if this wasn’t the best place for my comment. Still, anyone actually in the field want to comment?
@anders! For the record, I didn’t make up the word, I just morphed it into a pretend disorder. Long ago, somebody in my 10th grade English class said “infracaninophile” when we were asked to name our favorite word, and I liked it better than whatever I said at the time so I’ve since adopted it as mine. When I was composing this list, it had that nice Latin-Greek root thing going on, so I threw it in.
@Lauren D Psychiatric nosology is not my specialty, so I don’t think I can give you a good response. What I’d say is that if you take that argument to its endpoint, then you don’t have to limit yourself to psychiatric illnesses. Is an infection a disease, or is that label just a manifestation of the world’s expectation that my body be free of some particular virus or bacterium? I’d suspect that you’re going to find value judgments at the bottom of any definition of health and disease (isn’t “suffering is bad” a value judgment?). So maybe it’s not a matter of finding a non-value-laden approach, but rather being upfront about what values you’re using. But I am sure that people who specialize in medical humanities would have a better-informed answer than I do.
To Sanjay Srivastava,
HOW THE CURE PROVES THERE WAS NEVER A PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDER TO BEGIN WITH:
I think you missed my point, Sanjay. Maybe I didn’t make it clear enough. Put simply, it’s this:
Example –
If a transgender person GETS THE “CURE” (physical gender reassignment), then the SAME PSYCHOLOGY (their own) is now shown to be not pathological in any way — i.e. proving that there was NEVER a psychological problem to begin with.
The “cure” demonstrates that the “disorder” should never have been listed in the DSM to begin with, because it was a bodily issue, not a psychological one.
So, the cure to the psych-problem proves there was never a psych problem and therefore the cure was not psychologically justified. (the catch 22)
Can you see the problem here?
Ah, but you see, in order to be able to give informed consent for surgery, one must be of sound mind. One can have a mental illness, as long as it isn’t relevant to the area. Thus in order to authorise sex reassignment surgery, one cannot have a mental illness in the sexual area.
However, if someone requests sex reassignment, obviously they must be mentally ill. So obviously we should not authorise sex reassignment, any patient who requests it can never be mentally competent to assent to it, and anyone who can assent to it can’t request it.
Except… that many people die without it, the rest become progressively more dysfunctional, and wish they were dead.
It’s this conundrum that has perplexed psychiatrists and transsexual people alike. This has led to the Kludge we have today, that sorta works, even though it’s insane.
Now of we were to split the diagnosis into two parts – one physiological, congenitally cross-sexed neuro-anatomy, one psychological, the distress caused by that – then we could, by treating the anatomical condition, remove the cause of the psychological problem. We could even deal with the cases of intersexed children surgically assigned the incorrect sex after birth. All it needs is for Gender Dysphoria to be considered situational, like bereavement, or being the victim of child abuse, torture or rape. Most of those are already in the DSM.