We are all crazy now? Or perhaps we have been for a long time?

It’s pretty amusing to look at the British media exploding today over the DSMs proposed changes. FINALLY. Hopefully we will wake up on this side of the pond too. To be fair there have been some utterances of this sort over here, but it’s not broad or loud enough.

The fact is just about everyone can already find themselves in the DSM. It pathologizes the natural scope of being human. It always has. It’s getting worse is all. So perhaps this is all good that people are being forced to look at this.

I always think of Krishnamurti’s quote at moments like this…perhaps we all really are ill…

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

Unfortunately psychiatry is not the answer to the world’s ills. No, it’s just not.

The Press Association: Fears over mental healthcare moves

A further step in the Americanisation of mental healthcare threatens to turn large numbers of “normal” people into psychiatric patients, British experts warned.

Sweeping changes to a diagnostic “bible” that influences practitioners around the world could make it far easier to be labelled with a psychological problem, it is claimed.

One suggestion of the US authors is a new diagnosis of “psychosis risk syndrome” which singles out people thought to be at risk of developing a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia.

Individuals falling into this category might experience occasional mood changes, feelings of distress, anxiety or paranoia, or fleeting episodes of hearing voices.

In the past they might have been considered difficult or eccentric. Under the new proposals they could receive a diagnosis that affects their future lives and job prospects. Yet they may never deEvelop “full blown” psychosis.

Eccentrics ‘could be diagnosed with mental disorders’ – Telegraph

Patients may be more likely to be told they have psychological illnesses after experts proposed to modify classifications in a mental health guide used by doctors around the world, it was claimed.

BBC News – Mental health: are we all sick now?

Diagnosing psychiatric illness has always been controversial, mental health experts say. Now some are worried that a new draft of the diagnostic ‘bible’ for mental health medicine could result in almost everyone being diagnosed with a mental condition.