Only the Sheeple Are Sane
This post is about an issue that is by now a bit dated (though the topic as such certainly isn't), but we have only just become aware of it and it seemed to us worth rescuing it from the memory hole. In late 2013, the then newest issue of the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM for short) defined a new mental illness, the so-called "oppositional defiant disorder" or ODD.
As TheMindUnleashed.org informs us, the definition of this new mental illness essentially amounts to declaring any non-conformity and questioning of authority as a form of insanity. According to the manual, ODD is defined as:
[...] an "ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior," symptoms include questioning authority, negativity, defiance, argumentativeness, and being easily annoyed.In short, as Natural News put it: According to US psychiatrists, only the sheeple are sane.
Every time a new issue of the DSM appears, the number of mental disorders grows - and this growth is exponential. A century ago there were essentially 7 disorders, 80 years ago there were 59, 50 years ago there were 130, and by 2010 there were 374 (77 of which were "found" in just seven years). A prominent critic of this over-diagnosing (and the associated over-medication trend) is psychologist Dr. Paula Caplan. Here is an interview with her:
Comment: Stefan Molyneux' views are too extreme: There certainly are mental illnesses. The question is how we treat them. Pharmacological treatment is now a $76 billion industry.
But recently the scope and breadth of mental illnesses has been constantly widened, so that former "personality traits" are now considered a mental illness - mainly for control and financial reasons.
For further information see: