Gary Greenberg, "The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry"
2013 | ISBN-10: 0399158537 | EPUB, MOBI | 416 pages | 3,3 MB

For more than two years, author and psychotherapist Gary Greenberg has embedded himself in the war that broke out over the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental DisordersΓÇöthe DSMΓÇöthe American Psychiatric AssociationΓÇÖs compendium of mental illnesses and what Greenberg calls ΓÇ£the book of woe.ΓÇ¥
Since its debut in 1952, the book has been frequently revised, and with each revision, the ΓÇ£officialΓÇ¥ view on which psychological problems constitute mental illness. Homosexuality, for instance, was a mental illness until 1973, and AspergerΓÇÖs gained recognition in 1994 only to see its status challenged nearly twenty years later. Each revision has created controversy, but the DSM-5, the newest iteration, has shaken psychiatry to its foundations. The APA has taken fire from patients, mental health practitioners, and former members for extending the reach of psychiatry into daily life by encouraging doctors to diagnose more illnesses and prescribe more therapiesΓÇöoften medications whose efficacy is unknown and whose side effects are severe. CriticsΓÇöincluding GreenbergΓÇöargue that the APA should not have the naming rights to psychological pain or to the hundreds of millions of dollars the organization earns, especially when even the DSMΓÇÖs staunchest defenders acknowledge that the disorders listed in the book are not real illnesses.