Categories: uncategorized
Date: 10 October 2007 20:40:00
...is something I've become more adept at over the last 5 years, it's one of the compensations of M.E. As such I've been reading more in mental health, psychology, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, psychodeliasmith, etc. The bible of mental disorders in America is a big book called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-IV, currently in it's 4th edition. The European equivalent is a tome produced by the World Health Organisation called ICD-10, or
International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, currently in 10th revision. This covers every possible illness/disease/trauma you could possibly imagine, and many you probably couldn't, not just mental disorders. Today I discovered that ICD-10 is online, not just the index or a few extracts but the komplete kaboodle, the entire entity, the thingyness in its totality. Cool. Now, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to tell any hypochondriac friends of yours of this information as they will suddenly have symptoms of everything from retinal vascular occlusion to osteochondrosis of the spine (two nasty sounding conditions I just found at random). Anyway, it's a vast sea of knowledge and even just in chapter 5, Mental and behavioural disorders you will find your friends, employers, partner(/s), teachers, vicar/priest, family, postman/woman, local law enforcement officers, MP, Your MPs Kids, your MPs kids drug dealer and everyone whose body language you have secretly sought to decode while pretending to read the latest Harry Potter in a coffee shop in Stratford-upon-Avon.