PERMEATING SOCIETY The DSM Influence

In 2001, Simon Wessley, professor of psychiatry at King’s College and the Maudsley Hospital, South London, organized a poll and vote by 150 mental health specialists from around the globe to determine the 10 worst psychiatric publications in psychiatry’s history. Among them was the fourth edition of DSM . The poll determined, “If you are not in the
DSM-IV, you are not ill. It has become a monster, out of control.”

Today, the DSM “monster” is used to:

Determine a parent’s or individual’s mental fitness.

Remove a child from the custody of his or her parents.

Determine a prospective employee’s ability to do a job.

Deprive a person of his or her right to vote in some countries.

Determine if a person is fit to plead “guilty” in a criminal trial.

Incarcerate a defendant indefinitely in psychiatric care rather than being found guilty of a crime and serving a finite sentence.

Prevent a person from being released from jail or paroled.

Invalidate a person’s will.

Break legal contracts and override a person’s wishes regarding business or property.

Involuntarily incarcerate a person in a psychiatric institution where electroshock treatment and drugs can be forcibly administered.

Force a person to continue taking powerful, nerve- and brain-damaging drugs while living in the community.

Defraud a person’s health insurance.

Bill insurance companies for psychiatrists sexually assaulting their patients, while calling it “therapy.”

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