Please stop confusing psychology and psychiatry. That was the point of my post. You're using these two words as if they are synonyms. They are not. In fact they have little in common. One is a science (psychology), the other mostly (not completely) pseudo-medical quackery with little to no basis in the actual science it's supposed to be grounded in.
As for the DSM, I'm afraid the highest ranking (what they have ranks in psychiatry now? ;)) psychiatrist's idea will lead to even more quackery. DSM isn't perfect, there is a lot to complain about theoretically and practically, but it was at least a working attempt at objectivity. Abandoning the idea of having a list of (at least somewhat well) operationally defined disorders and working to improve that will again lead psychiatry to a state where a psychiatric diagnosis is no better than a random choice of an arbitrary label (it really was like that in the first half of 20th century, later things stated getting a little better).
> Please stop confusing psychology and psychiatry.
Please stop confusing psychology and science. A psychiatrist is a psychologist with a medical degree. Which part of this is in any way confusing? The reason for the special category "psychiatrist" in modern times (wasn't always true) is to allow drug prescribing, which is what psychiatrists now do (psychologists do most of the talk therapy).
> DSM isn't perfect, there is a lot to complain about theoretically and practically, but it was at least a working attempt at objectivity.
To aspire to objectivity, the DSM's editors would have had to allow evidence for causes of mental disturbances, not just effects (the DSM only lists symptoms, effects, not one cause is listed). But when given a chance to accept a cause-effect relationship, the editors rejected it, a story told in "Book of Woe" by therapist Gary Greenberg.
Imagine a medical text that only lists symptoms, not causes. Modern medicine would collapse. And modern psychiatry/psychology has collapsed.
According to the director of the NIMH and many others, psychology will be replaced by neuroscience, a field that will tie causes and effects. I hasten to add that neuroscience isn't ready for this burden yet, but it's not tainted in the way that psychology is.
> (the DSM only lists symptoms, effects, not one cause is listed).
This is false. While causes are usually not the primary focus of the DSM given its intended purposes, a number of diagnosis do include causes (particularly, those that where the presence or absence of a particular cause is relevant to diagnosis.)
There are many very legitimate criticisms possible of the processes behind the DSM in general or any particular edition of the DSM in particular, but this is not one of them.
> Imagine a medical text that only lists symptoms, not causes
The DSM isn't a general manual of psychiatry, its -- first and foremost -- a diagnostic guide.
> According to the director of the NIMH and many others, psychology will be replaced by neuroscience, a field that will tie causes and effects.
Neuroscience doesn't differ from psychology in tieing causes and effects, it differs in modelling lower-level, intermediate causes and mechanisms -- which are fundamentally very important to psychology.
OTOH, its unlikely to replace psychology (rather than simply informing and refining it) for the same reason that chemistry is still around after various domains of physics did more to reveal the lower-level, intermediate processes underlying the higher-level effects studied within chemistry.
>> (the DSM only lists symptoms, effects, not one cause is listed).
> This is false.
Check your facts. Here is what the sitting director of the NIMH had to say about the DSM and the issue of symptoms, as he announced his decision to abandon it:
Quote: "Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever."
Circle the word you didn't understand and raise your hand.
> Neuroscience doesn't differ from psychology in tieing causes and effects ...
That is exactly, precisely how neuroscience differs from psychology. Psychology does not address causes, only symptoms, as the above quote demonstrates, and as any honest appraisal of modern psychology shows.
> OTOH, its unlikely to replace psychology ...
Yes, I agree with this. Neuroscience won't replace psychology, for the same reason astronomy didn't replace astrology: stupid people who need to believe in things that have no empirical basis.
But in the future, unfortunately not any time soon, neuroscience will become the preferred treatment for non-imaginary ailments.
I've actually read substantial portions of the DSM-III, -IV, IV-TR, and -5. The facts are exactly as I stated them.
> Here is what the sitting director of the NIMH had to say about the DSM and the issue of symptoms, as he announced his decision to abandon it
None of that supports your claim about causes. Nor does it support your claim that psychiatry or psychology are somehow not science. What it does suggest is that pyschiatry is less well-developed than other fields of medicine, which is well understood.
> Psychology does not address causes, only symptoms
Repeating this doesn't make it true. Psychology in its current state doesn't have a lot of information on low-level mechanisms, to be sure, and that weakness is widely recognized; but to the extent that information is available on causes, it incorporates them. Neuroscience informs pscyhology by investigating low-level mechanisms, in much the same reason that physics informs chemistry.
> as the above quote demonstrates
The quote you are referencing doesn't mention "causes" at all, nor does it address "psychology".
What it does address, when taken in its full context (to which you provide the link) is the problem that comes when allowing the existing symptom based categories to limit research to develop a better understanding of psychiatric diagnosis to support better treatment.
> But in the future, unfortunately not any time soon, neuroscience will become the preferred treatment for non-imaginary ailments.
Neuroscience isn't a treatment.
And its been quite important to developing psychiatric treatments for some time, its not a future contributor.
As for the DSM, I'm afraid the highest ranking (what they have ranks in psychiatry now? ;)) psychiatrist's idea will lead to even more quackery. DSM isn't perfect, there is a lot to complain about theoretically and practically, but it was at least a working attempt at objectivity. Abandoning the idea of having a list of (at least somewhat well) operationally defined disorders and working to improve that will again lead psychiatry to a state where a psychiatric diagnosis is no better than a random choice of an arbitrary label (it really was like that in the first half of 20th century, later things stated getting a little better).