Published by the American Psychiatric Association
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - used by most psychiatrists, therapists, and social workers evaluating patients - appears legitimate due to it's extreme complexity and nomenclature but scientific methods and evidence are often disregarded as the handbook is revised and the personal biases and political considerations behind it are masquerading as solid science and truth. The DSM lacks the scientific basis claimed for it. Behind it's apparent "scientific validity" lies the APA's lack of interest in outsiders' views and the sloppy design and execution of the research it accepts as authoritative. It benefits anyone to carefully read through sections of the DSM to understand just how how far-fetched the APA's decisions on what constitutes "mental illness" really are. Problems with life and living become transformed into "mental illness" by the APA's slight of hand decisions, categorizations and nomenclature. Psychiatry is a sham science built on very shoddy scientific evidence. Anyone reading this book should also read these following books to better understand the degree to which the entire notion of "mental illness" is flawed: Making Us
Crazy: DSM: The Psychiatric Bible and the Creation of Mental Disorders
They Say You're Crazy: How the World's Most Powerful Psychiatrists Decide Who's Normal by Paula J. Caplan The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movements by Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., Professor Challenging the Therapeutic State: Critical Perspectives on Psychiatry and the Mental Health System by David Cohen A Dose of Sanity: Mind, Medicine, and Misdiagnosis by Sydney Walker III, MD. * * * People DO have various problems with life. Instead of naming and redefining these problems as various "mental diseases", and labeling people with them, as is currently done within the psychiatric community, these problems with life and living are best understood and addressed outside of the traditional psychiatric paradigm. Why? Because psychiatric "treatments" such as ECT, lobotomy, and powerful psychotropic drugs are barbaric, based upon severe faulty scientific methodology, and quite simply, harm people.
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