Professor Thomas Szasz on the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
“The primary function and goal of the DSMs is to lend credibility to the claim that certain behaviors, or more correctly, misbehaviors, are mental disorders…
“The primary function and goal of the DSMs is to lend credibility to the claim that certain behaviors, or more correctly, misbehaviors, are mental disorders…
“Psychiatry does not commit human rights abuse. It is a human rights abuse.” – Thomas Szasz “It’s not science. It’s politics and economics. That’s what…
Earlier this year, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced it was ceasing drug-discovery research for psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia…”Basically, from a research perspective, we’re pulling out of the psychiatry space.”— neuroscientist Menelas Pangalos
Diagnosing psychiatric illness has always been controversial, mental health experts say. Now some are worried that a new draft of the diagnostic ‘bible’ for mental health medicine could result in almost everyone being diagnosed with a mental condition. The diagnostic ‘bible’ in question is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association.
A further step in the Americanisation of mental healthcare threatens to turn large numbers of “normal” people into psychiatric patients, British experts warned. Sweeping changes to a diagnostic “bible” that influences practitioners around the world could make it far easier to be labelled with a psychological problem, it is claimed.