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Book review: Making Us Crazy

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This is a book review I did a few years ago. The book also goes into

the politilization of psychiatric diagnoses.

 

Also of concern in the U.S. is the government's use of psychiatric

diagnoses to silence whistle blowers in the U.S. military. Military

whistle blowers frequently find themselves shipped off to the

psychiatric wing of military hospitals for indefinite stays.

 

Victoria

 

MAKING US CRAZY: DSM: THE PSYCHIATRIC BIBLE AND THE CREATION OF MENTAL

DISORDERS by Herb Kutchins and Stuart A. Kirk, ISBN 0-684-82280-6.

Review by Judy Fitzgerald.

 

 

The DSM - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual - of the American

Psychiatric

Association has been criticized by many for its labeling of anything

and

everything as mental illnesses based on the flimsiest or non-existent

scientific proof. This time the criticism is coming from two

individuals

very much familiar with the psychiatric industry. Herb Kutchins is a

professor in the School of Health and Human Services at California

State

University, Sacramento, and is the author of many articles on criminal

justice, mental health, and social welfare law. Stuart Kirk holds the

Marjorie Crump Chair in the School of Public Policy and Social

Research

at UCLA and was the Dean of the School of Social Welfare at the State

University of New York, Albany.

 

Central to the authors' criticisms is the realization that a mental

disorder is what social scientists call a construct. " Constructs are

abstract concepts of something that is not real in the physical sense

that a spoon or motorcycle or cat can be seen and touched. Constructs

are shared ideas, supported by general agreement. ... Mental illness

is a

construct, a shared abstract idea. " (p23)

 

So who decides what is a mental illness in the U.S.? The American

Psychiatric Association (APA), and the DSM is their Bible. Few of the

rest of us have any say so about what goes into the DSM And mental

illness is a growth industry. The original DSM in the 1950s listed

only

fifty-some mental illnesses. The current DSM-IV lists well over 300

with

plans for more in future additions.

 

However, there's more fueling this phenomenon than just the desire for

power and wealth by the psychiatric industry. Insurance payments are

based on a client being labeled with one of the entries in the DSM.

Thus, a client who wants only a sounding board and a neutral party for

advice on any number of common life situations - an abusive boss, a

marriage, relocation, etc.- will find him/herself saddled with a

psychiatric diagnosis from the DSM. Once labeled this can impact

negatively on the person being able to get insurance, a new job, etc.

in

the future.

 

The role of the pharmaceutical companies in the expansion of entries

in

the DSM is of particular interest to people with chronic medical

conditions - especially for sufferers of conditions like CFIDS for

which

no cure currently exists and for which known treatments are common

supplements such as magnesium and B12 which can not be patented and

hence, do not bring the drug companies big profits.

 

" The pharmaceutical companies, for one, have a big stake in

psychiatric

diagnosis. It is well known that drug companies provide substantial

funding for the American Psychiatric Association's conventions and

major

scientific journals and reap enormous profits from the expanding

market

for psychiatric medications. They also fund a substantial number of

psychiatric researchers. It is less well known that some

pharmaceutical

companies have contributed directly to the development of DSM. The

companies have a direct financial interest in expanding the number of

people who can be defined as having a mental disorder and who then

might

be treated with their chemical products. For this reason, drug

companies

are disturbed by the findings of many surveys that have found that a

majority of people whom DSM would label neither define their own

problems

as mental illness nor seek psychiatric help for them.19 For drug

companies, these unlabeled masses are a vast untapped market, the

virgin

Alaskan oil fields of mental disorder. " (pp.12-13)

 

The authors go on to tell how a 26-item checklist, Prime-MD, was

developed with money from Pfizer, a large drug company, which holds

the

copyright to Prime-MD. Pfizer also pays for symposiums for

physicians on

using Prime-MD along with a lecture on psychopharmacology. A busy

physician who has no psychiatric training whatsoever can then make a

psychiatric diagnosis in an average of " only eight minutes " with the

aid

of Prime-MD, and then either prescribe drugs or refer the patient to a

psychiatrist.

 

The authors also give examples of how the supposedly scientific basis

of

the current DSM often is anything but. Critics of new diagnoses are

given no or few opportunities for input - not even other psychiatrists

who are critical. Research which is more than 30 years old - and

often

which is shaky in terms of scientific methodology - is cited as

scientific proof. This sloppiness also extends to diagnosis.

Criteria

for some mental illnesses in some instances do not have to be met

concurrently. For example, a diagnosis of certain cases of flu are

dependent on the patient having fever and a headache at the same time.

Would a doctor diagnose a patient as having the flu when he had the

fever

at age 19 and the headache at age 34? Yet, this is allowed with

psychiatric diagnoses.

 

I thoroughly recommend MAKING US CRAZY to anyone who has ever

suffered a

physical medical condition only to be told " It's all in your head. "

Also, to anyone concerned about the psychiatric industry's increasing

medicalization of common life problems.

 

************

For more information about this unholy alliance between the

pharmaceutical and psychiatric industries, check out the book Toxic

Psychiatry by Peter Breggin, MD. Or, check out his web site. Dr.

Breggin is himself a psychiatrist, but one who has been increasingly

dismayed by the abuse and fraud in his profession.

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