Dr. Ron Pies has a blog of his own on the Psychiatric Times website. It’s called “The Couch in Crisis.” I took a peak today and really enjoyed his posts, especially the one titled “The McDonaldization of Psychiatry: Psychiatric Knowledge Is Not the Equivalent of Fast Food.” I loved it. He writes:

The 4 primary features of McDonaldization, according to Ritzer, are efficiency, calculabilty, predictability, and control. Mind you, I have nothing against the occasional fast-food stop, and I will even confess to a weakness for cheeseburgers. But the McDonaldization of psychiatry is hardly the model of diagnosis and treatment we should embrace. And yet, many would argue, that is what we are now facing, as psychiatric diagnosis is reduced to endorsing and coding check-lists of manifest signs and symptoms; the 50-minute hour is reduced to the 15-minute “med check”; and psychotherapeutic acumen is reduced to a few perfunctory courses during residency. To be sure, there are many commendable exceptions to these trends, and many eloquent voices raised in discontent.2-5 Yet as we move toward the new diagnostic framework known as DSM-V, our field is arguably in the fight of its life.

Check out more of his posts by clicking here.

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