45 Facts About Allen Frances

Allen J Frances was born on 2 October 1942 and is an American psychiatrist.

Allen Frances is currently Professor and Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine.

Allen Frances is best known for serving as chair of the American Psychiatric Association task force overseeing the development and revision of the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

In recent years, Allen Frances has become a vocal advocate for improved treatment and societal conditions for the seriously mentally ill, the appropriate use of electroconvulsive therapy in severe cases of mental disorder, and an integrated, biopsychosocial approach to psychiatry.

Allen Frances received his bachelor's degree from Columbia College in 1963 and his medical degree in 1967 from SUNY Downstate College of Medicine.

Allen Frances graduated from the psychiatry residency training program at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in 1971 and received a certificate in psychoanalytic medicine from Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research in 1978.

Allen Frances was an early organizer of outpatient services based on a given psychiatric disorder, providing expert clinical services and enriched research environments.

Allen Frances was the founding editor of two journals that have become standards: The Journal of Personality Disorders and the Journal of Psychiatric Practice.

In 2013, Allen Frances wrote a paper entitled "The New Crisis of Confidence in Psychiatric Diagnosis", which said that "psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests".

Allen Frances declined the offer because he felt psychiatric treatment was much more interesting than psychiatric classification.

Allen Frances wrote the final draft of the personality disorders section of DSM-III; served as DSM-III liaison to the American Psychoanalytic Association and the Academy of Psychoanalysts; and he was a member of the team that delivered DSM-III educational conferences across the country.

Allen Frances wrote a number of papers on the uses and misuses of DSM-III and predicted DSM would eventually adopt a dimensional model of personality disorder diagnosis.

Allen Frances was appointed Chair of the DSM-IV Task Force in 1987.

Allen Frances's selection followed his role as one of the major advisors for DSM-IIIR and reflected concerns within the American Psychiatric Association that new disorders were being added without sufficient evidence and that definitions of existing disorders were too loose.

Allen Frances was known as a diagnostic conservative who would promote stability in the system and discourage its rapid expansion across the fuzzy boundary into normality.

Allen Frances introduced a thorough three-stage vetting system to discourage diagnostic exuberance in DSM-IV: 1.

However, Allen Frances argued that any change in DSM-IV that could be misused, would be misused, and both changes led to unfortunate fads of wild overdiagnosis.

In March 2010, Allen Frances began a weekly blog in Psychology Today, DSM-5 in Distress: The DSM's impact on mental health practice and research, often cross-posted in the Psychiatric Times and the Huffington Post.

Besides the original complaint that the DSM-5 Task Force was a closed process, Allen Frances pointed out that they were behind schedule and even with a one-year postponement, they had to drop a follow-up quality control step.

Allen Frances recommended further postponement and advocated asking an outside body to review their work to make suggestions.

Allen Frances's writings were joined by a general criticism of the DSM-5 revision, ultimately resulting in a petition calling for outside review signed by 14,000 and sponsored by 56 mental health organizations.

Allen Frances has decided to continue writing on a new Psychology Today blog called Saving Normal.

Allen Frances contends that while the deinstitutionalization movement was needed due to hospital overcrowding, frequent civil liberties violations, and poor conditions for hospitalized psychiatric patients, its implementation in the United States was an utter failure.

Allen Frances asserts that psychiatry itself has contributed to the neglect of the severely ill by diverting limited resources away from the community treatment of these patients and focusing instead on genetics research, neuroscience research, and the treatment of the mildly ill.

Allen Frances is particularly critical of NIMH spending excesses in the field of neuroscience, which he says have not helped a single patient in actual life.

Allen Frances is a proponent of a community psychiatry approach.

Allen Frances argues for the limited and safeguarded use of involuntary psychiatric hospitalization, writing that it is far preferable to the all-too-common alternatives: homelessness and imprisonment.

Allen Frances writes extensively about the pathologization of normal human behavior in his book Saving Normal, and provides guidance to clinicians to avoid these pitfalls in Essentials of Psychiatric Diagnosis.

Allen Frances is a proponent of the safe and appropriate use of electroconvulsive therapy in severe and treatment-resistant cases of mental disorder; the use of lithium therapy for bipolar disorder; and the use of clozapine for schizophrenia.

Allen Frances has repeatedly asserted that if he were severely depressed, he would agree to electroconvulsive treatment.

Allen Frances has expressed his belief that both lithium carbonate and clozapine are underutilized in the treatment of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, respectively, often in favor of newer, more profitable second-generation antipsychotic drugs.

Allen Frances has advocated for the widespread use of binding advanced directives allowing patients to determine when they are well what treatments they would like to receive should they have a psychotic relapse.

Allen Frances argues that advanced directives are perhaps the only intervention in psychiatry that is without a downside.

Allen Frances contends that advanced directives make sense for patients who have previously required involuntary treatment.

Allen Frances contends that guild wars within psychotherapy have hurt the profession and those it treats; like Marvin Goldfried, he is a proponent of psychotherapy integration.

Allen Frances has said that the biggest mistake made by American psychoanalysis was their rejection of Aaron Beck's cognitive behavior therapy.

Later, as head of the outpatient department at Cornell, Allen Frances noted that many patients failed to benefit from treatment, and some seemed to be harmed by it.

Allen Frances has much in common with critics of psychiatry who oppose overdiagnosis and overtreatment, but is much opposed to those who preach that psychiatric treatment is always harmful and never necessary.

Allen Frances frequently debated antipsychiatrists at conferences and in print, arguing that treatments overvalued to the many were essential to the few.

Allen Frances believes that antipsychiatry is a useful check against psychiatric overreach but that it is extremely harmful when it discourages patients from getting the treatment they need.

Allen Frances has argued that this research has helped many more millions of people than much of the fascinating but clinically useless biological research undertaken by NIMH in recent decades.

Allen Frances advised early-career therapists to treat patients across the psychiatric diagnostic spectrum, including severely ill patients; to learn the basics of psychopharmacology, including its limitations; and to gain life experience in a variety of ways, including reading literature, falling in love, and traveling, in order to become a more well-rounded therapist.

Allen Frances says that his patients were his best teachers and he is grateful to them not only for making him a better therapist but a better person.

Allen Frances wrote a 2017 book, titled, Twilight of American Sanity, in which he asserts that Trump himself does not have a mental disease, but rather that the problem lies with the American people for selecting him as US President.

Allen Frances needs to be contained, but he needs to be contained by attacking his policies, not his person.