Dismantling the D.S.M.-5
The new edition of the often-attacked “bible” of American psychiatry, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders known as D.S.M., is about to be released and, predictably, it is being preceded by controversy.
The NYT ‘s Dwight Garner examines two books that lead the alarm, The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry by Gary Greenberg, (Penguin/Blue Rider; Tantor Audio, 5/13) and Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life by Allen Frances, (HarperCollins/Morrow, 5/14) saying, they are “unalike yet deeply alike, as if they were vastly dissimilar Rube Goldberg devices that each ultimately drop the same antacid tablet into the same glass of water.”
Both, he says, are “repetitive and overlong,” and would have made better magazine articles, but, “Mr. Greenberg is a fresher, funnier writer. He paces the psychiatric stage as if he were part George Carlin, part Gregory House.”