The fifth edition of the “psychiatric bible,” the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), appeared this year—to an unaccustomed storm of controversy, not merely in antipsychiatry bestsellers but in high administrative offices. Thomas Insel, director of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health announced that the Institute would henceforth ignore all the DSM’s diagnoses when determining research funding because the manual’s “weakness is its lack of validity.”
That’s a pretty devastating pronouncement when you consider that the DSM is not only consulted worldwide, it is a basis for court decisions and accepted health insurance claims as well as pharmaceutical research. More, it defines what is normal for the human mind and what is not. (more...)
No comments:
Post a Comment