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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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