In what appears to be yet another attempt of widening the net of yet another 'psychiatric illness', British psychiatrists have come up with another laughable gem.
Selfies [those of us who take a post pictures of ourselves] are now under the watchful eye of the pharmafia.
A recent study, we are told, has deemed that selfies may have a mental disorder.
According to psychiatrist Dr David Veale: "Two out of three of all the patients who come to see me with Body Dysmorphic Disorder since the rise of camera phones have a compulsion to repeatedly take selfies.
"Cognitive behavioural therapy is used to help a patient to recognise the reasons for his or her compulsive behaviour and then to learn how to moderate it."
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), or body dysmorphia, is an anxiety disorder that causes sufferers to spend a lot of time worrying about their appearance and to have a distorted view of how they look. People that have BDD are deemed to be mentally ill.
I've searched high and low for this apparent study but I've not been able to find it - what I have found is various newspaper articles citing Dr David Veale.
Veale, pictured below [pro shot and not a selfie] is Consultant Psychiatrist In Cognitive Behaviour Therapy at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust and The Priory Hospital North London.
Dr David Veale
He is the co-author of Body Dysmorphic Disorder: A treatment manual, a book, according to the blurb, that was written for health professionals. Part of the blurb also reads: "Body Dysmorphic Disorder: A Treatment Manual is the first publication to provide both an overview of the current knowledge of BDD and a treatment manual using cognitive behaviour therapy and medication."
Ah, there's that word again folks, 'Medication'. Body Dysmorphic Disorder: A treatment manual, retails at £36.54 on Amazon, so, someone, somewhere is making money out of this 'theory'.
Upon hearing the news that being a selfie equates to having a mental illness I started researching and disseminating information via my Facebook wall. Most, if not all of my friends, found it laughable. We only have to look through the history of psychiatric disorders to learn that the field of psychiatry like to see what they can get away with. We shouldn't forget that homosexuality was once deemed a mental illness - it was later pulled from the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM] - Quite why it appeared in there in the first place baffles me.
Targeting the millions of selfies out there is nothing more than the pharmaceutical industry seeing a gap in the market and sending in the clowns to convince the public that selfies are mentally ill. They did it with shyness years ago and heavily promoted such wonder drugs as Prozac and Seroxat [Paxil] to cure the mentally afflicted [those of us that were shy].
So selfies suffer with narcissism huh? Let's take a look at a world renowned pediatric psychiatrist for one moment here. It is my opinion that Joseph Biederman opitomizes what is wrong with the field of psychiatry. He does this with signs of narcissism.
Biederman was being interviewed by attorneys and was asked, under oath, what rank he was.
Biederman: - Full Professor
Attorney: - What's after that?
Biederman: - God
Attorney: - Did you say God?
Biederman: - Yeah
Here's the footage...
So, be careful taking those selfies folks, you may just be deemed to have a disease of the brain that can never be proven but because psychiatry says it exists then you will have one hell of a problem disproving them...such is their grip on modern day medicine. Next stop will be to target those who feel the need to post pictures of meals they have just cooked.
Here's a collection of friends who disagree with British psychiatrist Dr David Veale.
Reports circulating with claims that the American Psychiatric Association [APA] has come out and officially declared taking a selfie to be a mental disorder are false
You can follow Dr David Veale on Twitter here - you may wish to send him your own selfie.
Bob Fiddaman
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