Classifying Madness

This book is about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, more commonly known as the D.S.M. The D.S.M. is published by the American Psychiatric Association and aims to list and describe all mental disorders. The D.S.M. is embedded in mental health care at every turn. In the U.S., hospital records note a D.S.M. diagnosis and medical insurance companies demand D.S.M. codes before they will consider reimbursing for the cost of care. Worldwide, research papers are couched in D.S.M. terminology and pharmaceutical companies list the D.S.M. diagnoses that their drugs treat. Mental health professionals, and their patients, can not avoid being affected by the D.S.M. §The D.S.M. is important, but it is also controversial. While its publishers claim that the D.S.M. is a scientific classification system based on sound data, many have doubts. Big business has interests in the D.S.M. Perhaps the D.S.M. has been distorted by pressures stemming from insurance companies, or from pharmaceutical companies? Others are concerned that whether a condition is classified as a mental disorder depends too greatly on social and political factors. More conceptual worries are also frequent. If classification requires a theory, and if mental disorders are poorly understood, then a sound classification system may be presently unobtainable. Possibly even attempting to construct a classification system that "cuts nature at the joints" is conceptually na