The direction of psychiatry has to be diverted from its current course before the very human condition itself is pathologized and medicated out of existence.
Earlier this year, the APA published the DSM-5, the fifth major revision of the manual.
Commonly referred to as the psychiatric diagnostic "bible," the guide has always generated controversy. How are disorders diagnosed? What criteria are used to establish disorders in the first place? Are the categories subjective? Do they reflect cultural biases?
These questions are not unique to the DSM. They have plagued psychiatry since its earliest days. But the DSM, as the base guideline for the use of clinical psychiatrists across America for the past half century, is the place where these philosophical issues are decided in concrete terms.
Some of the DSM's most strident critics dispute the very name of the guide itself, pointing out that it is not statistical and that the term "diagnosis" is itself misleading.
This question of terminology is not mere quibbling over semantics. If the label of "medical diagnosis" is extended to the field of psychiatry, even in the absence of any objective or external criteria for producing that diagnosis, then the medical prognosis of prescription medicine seems justified, perhaps even inevitable. Again, far from an academic debate, the question of when and how to justify pharmaceutical treatment for mental health issues is one with real world implications. Implications that impact the bottom line of the trillion dollar pharmaceutical industry.
Comment: This is considered healthy??? Meanwhile, the war on school lunches wages on:
Canadian mother fined for not 'balancing' child's lunch with Ritz Crackers
US, Washington DC: 'Lunch-In' Protests Crackdown on Homemade Lunches
US: Chicago school bans homemade lunches, the latest in national food fight
US, North Carolina: State Inspectors Searching Children's Lunch Boxes