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INVENTED
DISEASES Diagnostic Pseudoscience
Underlying all of the problems discussed in this publication and
more, is a system of diagnosis of mental disorders that is unscientific
to the point of being an outright fraud.
The psychiatric bible for diagnosing mental disorders is the APA’s Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM . First published
in 1952, the latest edition, the DSM-IV , lists 374 mental disorders.
From this manual comes the diagnosis with which psychiatry labels a person.
Since psychiatry cannot cure any mental disorder, as it doesn’t know their causes,
it is also a label that the person will be stuck with for the rest of his life.
“Unlike medical diagnoses that convey a probable cause, appropriate treatment
and likely prognosis, the disorders listed in DSM-IV are terms arrived
at through peer consensus”—a vote by APA committee members—and designed largely
for billing purposes, reports Canadian psychologist, Dr. Tana Dineen. There
is no objective science to it.
Psychiatrists admit they cannot even define what they are “treating.”
On the “schizophrenia” entry, the authors of DSM-II admitted, “Even
if it had tried, the Committee could not establish agreement about what this
disorder is; it could only agree on what to call it.”
In DSM-III psychiatrists admitted, “… the etiology [cause of mental
disorders] is unknown. A variety of theories have been advanced … not always
convincing —to explain how these disorders come about.”
DSM-IV states the term “mental disorder” continues to appear in the volume
“because we have not found an appropriate substitute.” Dr. Sydney Walker, psychiatrist,
neurologist and author of A Dose of Sanity warned about the dangers of
relying upon the DSM : “Unfortunately, DSM can have a serious
impact on your life. … The manual’s effects are felt far outside doctors’ offices—in
homes, business offices, court- rooms, and jails. DSM can be used to
determine your fitness as a parent, your ability to do a job, even your right
to support a particular political party.
“It can be used to keep a criminal in jail or to release a murderer back into
society. It can be used to invalidate your will, to break your legal contracts,
or to deny you the right to marry without a court’s permission. If giving that
much power to one book sounds scary, it is. But it’s no exaggeration. …
“I believe, until the public and psychiatry itself see that DSM labels
are not only useless as medical ‘diagnoses’ but also have the potential to do
great harm—particularly when they are used as means to deny individual freedoms,
or as weapons by psychiatrists acting as hired guns for the legal system.”
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