Saturday, August 23, 2008

New for DSM-V? (Part 1)

Thanks to Arts & Letters Daily, I see that psychiatry has continued its bold foray into nosology (here's one pun I never thought I'd have the opportunity for), in the form of a study by two (reportedly) eminent researchers into the prevalence of rhinotillexomania (that would be nose picking). Apparently this survey indicates that such behavior is highly prevalent among teenagers, as it has been found in previous studies to be in adults, and as with virtually any other behavior, a certain subset of human beings apparently pushes it to the point of "psychopathology" (pain, bleeding, etc.).

Unless this news story was a hoax (in which case the joke is on this psychiatrist), is there any better illustration of the intellectual bankruptcy of contemporary psychiatry? Are there too many academics with too much time on their hands? Maybe someone can conduct a study to find out.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your pun is exquisite!