Tag Archives: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders

Badmouthing Your Ex Could be a Psychiatric Disorder

The diagnosis of Parental Alienation Disorder is being considered for inclusion in the upcoming edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Advocacy groups and clinicians are pushing for it to go through – saying that it’s a real condition that affects a huge number of children.

The Guardian: Mental Health Diagnoses Mask the Real Problems—Range of new diagnoses is mythology, not scientific text

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, whose updated fifth edition will include a range of new diagnoses, is a mythology, not a scientific text. It is created by American psychiatrists who meet in groups to consider whether or not a certain diagnosis should be included in the DSM. These groups meet a number of times so that they can say that their agreement about a certain diagnosis is reliable. Thus they could reliably agree that there is a mental disorder called Guardian Readers’ Personality Disorder with the symptoms of a need to read this paper regularly, an overvaluation of the Guardian, and so on. Who knows, it might already be in the most recent version of the DSM.

The BBC—new report challenges psychiatry’s billing bible, the DSM—”Mental Health: Are we all sick now?”

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.