The essential feature of Conduct Disorder, according to the APA, is a “repetitive and persistent pattern” of rule breaking or activity which violates other people’s basic rights. The manual identifies four broad categories of behavior under this heading: aggression; destruction of property; theft or deceitfulness; and serious violation of rules.
DSM goes on to state that individuals with this disorder display little concern for the feelings or welfare of others, are frequently callous and indifferent to other people’s pain and loss, and show little in the way of feelings of guilt or remorse. Poor frustration tolerance, irritability, temper tantrums, and recklessness are cited as frequently associated features.
Diagnostic Criteria for Conduct Disorder
The notion that the kinds of serious misbehaviors described above are caused by a mental disorder represents an enormous departure from common sense and conventional wisdom. For this reason, the complete list of DSM criteria are set out below, to enable the reader to clearly assess the APA’s position on this matter. The manual lists the following fifteen items, three of which must have been present in the previous twelve months:
Aggression to people and animals:
(1) often bullies, threatens, or intimidates others
(2) often initiates physical fights
(3) has used a weapon that can cause serious physical harm to others (e.g., a bat, brick, broken bottle, knife, gun)
(4) has been physically cruel to people
(5) has been physically cruel to animals
(6) has stolen while confronting a victim (e.g., mugging, purse snatching, extortion, armed robbery)
(7) has forced someone into sexual activity
Destruction of property
(8) has deliberately engaged in fire setting with the intention of causing serious damage
(9) has deliberately destroyed others’ property (other than by fire setting)
Deceitfulness or theft
(10) has broken into someone else’s house, building, or car
(11) often lies to obtain goods or favors or to avoid obligations (i.e., “cons” others)
(12) has stolen items of nontrivial value without confronting a victim (e.g., shoplifting, but without breaking and entering; forgery)
Serious violations of rules
(13) often stays out at night despite parental prohibitions, beginning before age 13 years
(14) has run away from home at least twice while living in parental or parental surrogate home (or once without returning for a lengthy period)
(15) is often truant from school, beginning before age 13 years
It is clear from these criteria that what is being described here is plain old-fashioned criminality. A serial rapist, for instance, who threatens his victims with a weapon meets criteria 1, 3, and 7, and is therefore suffering from a mental illness. A person who smashes car windows to steal from the glove compartment, who steals from stores, and who bullies and intimidates his family meets criteria 1, 11, and 12, and is also suffering from a mental illness. Just about any kind of criminality you care to imagine is covered by these criteria. In other words, a “diagnosis” of Conduct Disorder means habitual criminality. The APA is not saying that some habitual criminals have a mental illness. Rather, they are saying that habitual criminality in and of itself constitutes a mental illness.
APA’s estimates of prevalence rates are high: 6 to 16% for males, and 2 to 9% for females. DSM goes on to state that Conduct Disorder is “one of the most frequently diagnosed conditions in outpatient and inpatient mental health facilities for children.” The so-called disorder is not confined to children, however, and the manual makes it clear that the diagnosis can be assigned to adults if they meet the criteria.
As with most mental health diagnoses, the critical issue is not whether the misbehaviors in question represent serious problems. Clearly they do. Rather, the issue is whether or not they should be conceptualized as mental disorders. Former generations would have used more conventional terms, such as delinquency, villainy, vandalism, crime, brutality, etc., to describe these kinds of activities, and as with ADHD, would for the most part have identified lax or inconsistent parental discipline as the proximate cause. By calling these misbehaviors a mental disorder, the APA is promoting an entirely different way of conceptualizing these problems, and in particular is promoting the notion that these kinds of problems need to be treated by psychiatrists and other mental health workers. The assignment of the diagnosis also implies that the problem is something inherent to the child, and downplays the role of the parents, or indeed of other factors.
The high prevalence rates cited earlier make it clear that the individuals diagnosed with Conduct Disorder represent a sizable proportion of the government statistics mentioned in an earlier post. It is tempting to wonder if politicians and other interested parties who endorse these statistics realize that many of the “afflicted” individuals whose cause they champion are included purely on the basis of a persistent pattern of serious misbehavior and delinquency.
One noteworthy feature of Conduct Disorder is that it has not garnered as much public acceptance as ADHD, even though conceptually there are multiple parallels. The likely reason for this is a recognition on the part of the APA that ascribing such serious misbehavior to a mental disorder would not be palatable to the general public, and that a more lengthy “softening-up” period may be necessary before such a concept would be widely accepted.
OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER
DSM-IV-TR defines Oppositional Defiant Disorder as a “recurrent pattern of negativistic, defiant, disobedient and hostile behavior towards authority figures…” (100), characterized by temper tantrums, arguing with parents and other adults, defiance, refusal to comply with requests and directives, deliberately annoying other people, blaming others for his/her own errors, and being spiteful and vindictive.
The manual lists eight specific criteria, four of which must be present for the diagnosis to be assigned. The eight criteria items are listed below:
(1) often loses temper
(2) often argues with adults
(3) often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults’ requests or rules
(4) often deliberately annoys people
(5) often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
(6) is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
(7) is often angry and resentful
(8) is often spiteful and vindictive.
There is little to be said about this so-called mental disorder that has not already been addressed with regards to ADHD and Conduct Disorder. The fundamental question is why this kind of misbehavior, which former generations would have characterized as “being a spoiled brat” should now be considered a mental disorder.
And as with the other so-called mental disorders, the answer is because the APA say so. This is in marked contrast with general medicine, where the identification of a disease usually represents an enormous breakthrough in terms of understanding and treatment. The idea of conventional medical researchers sitting in committees and inventing illnesses by voting and consensus would be considered laughable. Yet that is exactly what the APA has been doing for the past half century with successive revisions of the DSM.
As with other so-called disorders discussed earlier, the diagnosis clearly implies that the problem is something inherent in the child. This effectively lets the parents off the hook, reduces expectations, and in practice encourages a kind of self-centered egotism on the part of the child which usually persists into adulthood. The “disorder” also serves as a portal diagnosis, and typically other mental disorders (e.g., depression, ADHD) are “uncovered” as the child receives “treatment”.
In this context it is worth noting a major weakness of the entire DSM system i.e. the “all or nothing” nature of the so-called diagnoses. In conventional medicine, the all or nothing framework is generally valid. You’ve either got meningitis or you haven’t. There are, of course, degrees to which the infection may have developed, but even a mild case of meningitis is a serious condition, and a dichotomous approach is warranted – not only for treatment/administrative reasons, but also because it accurately reflects the objective reality.
The behaviors outlined above, however, as diagnostic of Oppositional Defiant Disorder are emphatically not dichotomous. Each item very clearly admits of degrees. Consider the first item on the list: “often loses temper”. This could mean anything from a few irate foot-stampings, to wholesale mayhem. Additionally, the word “often” is subject to quantification. Does often mean daily? weekly? monthly? Similar considerations apply to the other items on the list, and to the APA’s requirement of four or more items to make a diagnosis. Why not three, or five?
The fact is that childhood defiance is not a simple unified construct, and is emphatically not dichotomous. It contains multiple components, each of which admits of degrees and could be quantified. In their drive to “medicalize” all human problems, the APA shoehorned this phenomenon into a simplistic yes or no format to facilitate the process of “diagnosis.” The result is not a genuine understanding of the child’s/family’s problem, but a travesty that serves only the interests of the psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical companies. The same criticism can be leveled at almost all the so-called diagnoses in DSM.
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