Psychiatrists say that being angry is a mental illness

Wednesday, April 07, 2010 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: psychiatry, mental illness, health news

(NaturalNews) Proposed updates to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) are prompting many to question whether or not the psychiatric profession itself has gone crazy. The latest additions to the alleged "mentally ill" could include hoarders, people who get angry every now and again, lazy people, and even those who get outraged over things like sex and violence on television.

Since its first publication back in 1952, the DSM has grown exponentially larger with each subsequent edition. Many people are lambasting the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for trying to establish virtually all behavior as some sort of mental disorder that should be treated with psychiatric drugs.

"For this latest revision they've set up a special task force to decide if behaviors like bitterness, extreme shopping or overuse of the internet should be included," explained Professor Christopher Lane to a reporter from the the U.K.'s Daily Mail. "The science underlying all this is very shaky to non-existent."

Dr. David Kupfer, chairman of the APA's special task force, has come out in defense of the additions. He claims that each one is grounded in science, despite the fact that no biological markers can definitely identify any of the additions as actual disorders. In order to identify things like excessive shopping and extreme laziness as mental disorders, the team will simply call them as such and provide a description of the each one's symptoms.

If the additions themselves are not loony enough, the APA is actually recommending the inclusion of what it calls "risk syndromes", or early warning signs that could lead to one of its supposed mental disorders. By catching these "risk syndromes" early, doctors can begin prescribing medication for conditions that people do not even have.

The entire DSM charade is a ploy to characterize an ever-increasing segment of the population as being "sick" and in need of pharmaceutical drugs. There can be no variations in personality and individual characteristics; if a person does not live, think, and react in prescribed fashion, then he or she is sick and in need of treatment, according to the APA.

The latest DSM draft, which is set to be published in 2013, has already been posted on the internet for public viewing. Since being posted, there has been widespread outcry against many of the proposed additions. It remains to be seen what will be included in the final edition and whether or not people will continue to take the DSM and the APA seriously.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12...