Psychiatry is Vexxing More Americans Than Ever counterpunch.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from counterpunch.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar explores with Arthur Kleinman how healthcare systems often overlook personal stories, focusing on treating diseases rather than individuals.
In just two decades, pointing out the pseudoscience of the DSM has gone from being an “extremist slur of radical anti-psychiatrists” to a mainstream proposition from the former chairs of both the DSM-3 and DSM-4 taskforces and the director of NIMH. In addition to the pathologizing of normal behaviors, another explanation for the epidemic the adverse effects of psychiatric medications is also evolving from radical to mainstream, thanks primarily to the efforts of Robert Whitaker and his book Anatomy of an Epidemic. While diagnostic expansionism and Big Pharma certainly deserve a large share of the blame for this epidemic, there is another reason.