Tag Archives: DSM V in distress

Those in favor of Psychiatry’s Billing Bible? The American Psychiatric Association. Against it? Just About Everyone else

The arguments against DSM-5 are really quite simple and straightforward — and to me seem absolutely compelling. DSM-5 has failed to allow an open, independent and rigorous scientific review of the evidence supporting its suggestions. It is the result of a secretive and closed process that has lost touch with clinical reality. Its suggestions for new diagnoses and for reducing thresholds on old ones will promote a radical explosion in the rates of psychiatric diagnosis that will worsen our country’s already excessive use of medication. Finally, the DSM-5 preoccupation with diagnosing disorders in people who are not really ill will result in a misallocation of resources that disadvantages those most clearly in need them.