By 2013, when the new DSM—the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—is published, Americans are bound to become even more confused about who they are and whether they’re “normal.” The addition of “illnesses” like mild anxiety(a worrier), mild depression(sadness), mild social anxiety(shyness) temper regulation disorder, reactive attachment disorder, and borderline personality disorder are labels likely to be slapped on unprecedented numbers of Americans. The fine lines and minutiae of these new diagnostic criteria are enough to make anyone crazy—even psychiatrists.
The DSM is published by the American Psychiatric Association, which claims that the current revamp of the manual is intended to capture all mental disorders. But the proposed additions, ideas submitted by various U.S. psychiatrists that are then reviewed by APA’s DSM-5 work groups, seem like culturally invented illnesses.
The problems with the DSM revision echo broader concerns in American society, including the tendency to overlook the significance of developing basic life skills, such as learning to cope with adversity and learning how to negotiate social interactions. Not all children develop at the same rate, and many people only encounter the need for these skills once they move out from under the protection of their parents’ roof. And what about the possibility that parents, arguably now keeping a closer eye on the mental state of their children than in the past, are unintentionally instilling a sense of “abnormalness” in their children?
Psychiatrists on the other side of the Atlantic disagree with the APA’s decision to narrow the “normal” pool, and psychiatrists in countries worldwide have described the spikes in the prevalence of disorders like ADHD and autism in the United States as false epidemics.
Some psychiatrists stateside agree with this assessment, and many point to DSM-IV, the revision to the manual published more than a decade and a half ago, as the cause of those epidemics.
Medicating children who are not ill is a very real consequence of the APA’s plan to include what some have described as “novelty conditions” in DSM-5. The validity of the manual has always been a source of controversy, and it has been routinely criticized for relying too heavily on cultural perceptions. Of course, cultural bias is difficult to avoid when American psychiatrists are creating America’s manual of mental illnesses. If the APA’s revisions are accepted, few “normal” people will be left in the United States at the end of the next decade.
The “ever-shrinking idea of normalcy” is debated in the August 2010 issue of the Journal of Mental Health. The articles are open-access.
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