Christopher Lane recently wrote an article called Anti-DSM Sentiment Rises in France.
Here are some quotes:
“Anger and concern about the growing influence of the DSM in France, as well as over a number of related, prominent pharmaceutical scandals here, has culminated in the creation of Stop DSM, a professional and political group that is strongly opposed to the manual’s diagnostic power and what it sees as its negative social consequences.”
“Moreover, far short of scientific rigor, the DSM is based on unambiguously partial conceptions. It neglects … clinical data; multiplies … pathological categories; and lowers the threshold of diagnostic criteria for inclusion, which leads to false-positives and pseudo-outbreaks (as, for example, hyperactivity, bipolar disorder, [and] autism). It is misused for predictive purposes in children and adolescents, taking the risk of harming their development and integration. It also promotes what has become, for a large part of the population, a real addiction to psychotropic drugs.”
Lest one might imagine that the problem is peculiarly French, Dr. Lane cites the following:
“…the New York Times published a balanced op ed by Weill Cornell Medical psychiatrist Richard A. Friedman entitled, “A Call for Caution in the Use of Antipsychotic Drugs.” Abilify, Seroquel, “and other antipsychotic drugs were prescribed to 3.1 million Americans at a cost of $18.2 billion,” Friedman noted, “a 13 percent increase over the previous year, according to the market research firm IMS Health. The number of annual prescriptions for atypical antipsychotics rose [in the U.S.] to 54 million in 2011 from 28 million in 2001,” he continued, “a 93 percent increase, according to IMS Health. One study found that the use of these drugs for indications without federal approval more than doubled from 1995 to 2008.” “Until recently,” Friedman concluded, “these drugs were used to treat a few serious psychiatric disorders. But now, unbelievably, these powerful medications are prescribed for conditions as varied as very mild mood disorders, everyday anxiety, insomnia and even mild emotional discomfort.” As this blog noted back in June 2009, Seroquel has even been tested in randomized trials on those with public-speaking anxiety.”
If you are concerned about the proliferation of “mental illnesses,” the article is well worth a look.
On this website, it has consistently been my position that there are no mental illnesses, that their invention and proliferation by the APA and other bodies is a massive fraud for the creation and expansion of turf, and particularly to legitimize the widespread drugging of the population by psychiatrists. The APA’s so-called nosology is spurious, self-serving nonsense which routinely harms individuals and society in general. It’s a sandcastle and it’s starting to crack.