Medicine's big new battleground: does mental illness really exist? [View all]

[bananas]

Last edited Sun May 12, 2013, 07:20 AM - Edit history (2)

Source: Guardian

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And now, in a significant new attack, the very nature of disorders identified by psychiatry has been thrown into question. In an unprecedented move for a professional body, the Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP), which represents more than 10,000 practitioners and is part of the distinguished British Psychological Society, will tomorrow publish a statement calling for the abandonment of psychiatric diagnosis and the development of alternatives which do not use the language of "illness" or "disorder".

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"The statement isn't just an account of the many problems of psychiatric diagnosis and the lack of evidence to support it," she said. "It's a call for a completely different way of thinking about mental health problems, away from the idea that they are illnesses with primarily biological causes."

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"We are not denying that these people are very distressed and in need of help. However, there is no evidence that these experiences are best understood as illnesses with biological causes. On the contrary, there is now overwhelming evidence that people break down as a result of a complex mix of social and psychological circumstances – bereavement and loss, poverty and discrimination, trauma and abuse."

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/may/12/medicine-dsm5-row-does-mental-illness-exist

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Time zone note: according to other news articles, the statement will be released Monday in the UK (British time zone), not sure when that will be in the US time zones.

EDIT: I posted the wrong link, changed it to the article I actually excerpted from, which has much more information.