Fun_People Archive
15 May
New diagnoses

Date: Mon, 15 May 95 12:18:21 PDT
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: New diagnoses

Forwarded-by: mbkomor@remarque.berkeley.edu (m.b.komor)
Forwarded-by: Wolf <jwolf@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>
From: Carolyn Garrett Cline <ccline@mizar.usc.edu>
Subject: Obsessive compulsive? New diagnosis


My dean, who is a clinical psychologist specializing in abnormal behavior
(who better to run a J-school?)  forwarded this post.

I am afraid I fit the profile and suspect others on this list do too....

Carolyn Cline
USCal


---------- Forwarded message ----------

Follows is a list of newly identified disorders that may appear in the
next Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-V.  But
fear not,, your undaunted Dean is working on a nonpharmacological cure for
most of these disorders. -- GCD

	
      Preliminary Draft of the DSM-V Committee on Cyberdisorders

The Cyber Disorders section includes disorders that have a dependency upon
cyberexistance as the predominant feature.  The section is divided into
three parts.  The first part describes e-mail episodes that serve as the
building blocks for the disorder diagnoses.  The second part describes the
Cyber Disorders themselves.  The criteria sets for most of the Cyber
Disorders require the presence or absence of the e-mail episodes described
in the first part of the section.  The third part includes the specifiers
that describe either the most recent e-mail episode, or the course of
recurrent episodes.

The Cyber Disorders are divided into Posting Disorders, Flaming Disorders
and CC Disorders.  The Posting Disorders (i.e. Lurking Disorder, Chronic
Posting Disorder and Posting Disorder not Otherwise Specified) are
distinguished from the Flaming Disorders by the fact that there is no
history of ever having posted a Flame, or Flame-with-Apology.  CC
Disorders (CC-All Disorder and Spam Disorder) may include episodes of
Chronic Posting, Flames, and/or Flame-With-Apologies but can be
distinguished by the number of addressees.

Lurking Disorder is characterized by one or more episodes of lurking (i.e.
at least two weeks of lurking or loss of interest in answering mail
accompanied by at least four additional symptoms of Lurking including high
on-line time balances, walking away from the computer while logged on,
composing posts and deleting them without sending them, etc.)

Chronic Posting Disorder is characterized by at least 4 weeks of posting
to a newsgroup or listserv more days than not, accompanied by additional
Cyber symptoms such as checking mail several times per day, posts in which
the content is shorter than the message header or sig, and messages of
extreme anxiety when list volume drops.

Posting Disorder not Otherwise Specified is included for coding disorders
with posting features that do not meet the criteria for Lurking Disorder
or Chronic Posting Disorder.

Flaming Disorder is characterized by one or more episodes of hot-tempered
posts, usually posted within seconds of receiving the 'trigger' message,
but can be distinguished from the Flame-With-Apology in that the sender
has a sincere belief that he/she is 100% correct and morally entitled to
his/her feelings of outrage.  Flaming Disorder is often accompanied by
Chronic Posting Disorder.

Flame-With-Apology Disorder is a milder form of the Flaming Disorder, in
which the poster sincerely apologizes for the first portion of the message
and yet sends it anyway.  A variation of Flame-With-Apology exists in
which posters staunchly defend their position for 3 to 4 days, then
abruptly back down and revert to Chronic Posting or Lurking.

The specifiers described in the third part of the section are provided to
increase diagnostic specificity, create more homogeneous subgroups, assist
in treatment selection, and improve the prediction of prognosis.  Some of
the specifiers describe the current or most recent episode (i.e.  Pine,
Elm, Anonymous, With Humorous Features, and With Uncomplicated Internet
Access).

© 1995 Peter Langston