Psychiatric “Diagnoses” vs Real Diagnoses
Robert Whitaker’s website, Mad in America, is abuzz lately with articles challenging the medical model that underlies DSM and psychiatric “treatment” in general. Recently there was an article by Alice Keys, MD, called “Do Diagnoses Injure People?” Of course I believe emphatically that they do, and I read the article. Much of the content is valuable, and I encourage readers to take a look. There was one aspect of the piece, however, that I found troubling. Dr. Keys made the point that psychiatric diagnoses can be dangerous, but then mitigated this considerably by making the same assertion about medical diagnoses in general. Whilst there may be a measure of truth to this assertion, it is misleading, in that it creates the impression that psychiatric “diagnoses” are just as valid as real medical diagnoses, which is simply not the case. ...