Implicit to the drug companies’ messianic promises of health, happiness and economic productivity is a spurious parable of linear scientific progress: in spite of consistently inconclusive clinical trials, new psychotropic drugs are regularly marketed as improvements on old ones, ever more specific in their targeting of neurotransmitters, ever less productive of pernicious side effects.
In 2012, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) will publish the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). In May 2008, the APA released the names of the work group members. Last April, the 13 work groups reported on their progress, revealing that organized psychiatry is on the verge of including several ancient vices and new time wasters in this Pandora’s Box. Advocates have lobbied to expand the universe of the mentally disturbed with philanderers (sex addicts), spend thrifts (compulsive shoppers), the gluttonous (binge eaters) and internet gamers.
2012 is when the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is expected to be published. If previous revisions are anything to go by, then many more people will fall within the parameters required for a diagnosis of mental disorder.
Quite how the association will decide when normal kvetching becomes a sickness—or reasonable amounts of sex become excessive—is still anyone’s guess.