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.
This is the third article in a five-part series on depression. My first column discussed the limitations in diagnosing depression. The second presented literature reviews that concluded antidepressants are no more effective than placebos in treating depression. This column explains how the drug companies deceive us.
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.
Is anyone normal anymore? An updated edition of the medical reference doctors use to diagnose mental illnesses could include a range of brand-new disorders, including some that describe thought patterns and behaviors that have long been considered mere quirks or examples of eccentric behavior.
Despite the public relations campaign aimed at “de-stigmatizing mental illness,” scores of permanent, stereotyping labels are assigned to what are basically annoying habits: clicking a pen repeatedly (anxiety), talking fast (hysteria), repeating a favorite song over and over (obsessive-compulsive disorder), wiggling in a chair (hyperactive). Even crazes like text-messaging are not immune from diagnosis. Attitudes that may be in bad taste or out-of-fashion, but certainly not “dangerous” or “wrong,” are also viewed with suspicion and sometimes criminalized.
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