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   From: sheriffcoltrane23x@gmail.com   
      
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   On Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 10:26:51 AM UTC-5, rpautrey2 wrote:   
   > What is Normal & Who's to Say? Psychiatrists Decide...   
   > "Labels assigned by medical professionals can consign individuals to   
   > the scorn of others, and to the physical and emotional abuse that may   
   > follow." - Marta Minow, "Interpreting Rights"   
   >    
   > "Only in psychiatry is the existence of physical disease determined by   
   > APA presidential proclamations, by committee decisions, and even, by a   
   > vote of the members of APA, not to mention the courts". - Peter   
   > Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry   
   >    
   > "Some critics wonder if the multiplication of mental disorders has   
   > gone too far, with the realm of abnormal encroaching on areas that   
   > were once the province of individual choice, habit, eccentricity or   
   > lifestyle." - Erica Goode, "Sick, or Just Quirky?"   
   >    
   > "DSM-III represents a bold series of choices based on guess, taste,   
   > prejudice, and hope ... few are based on fact or truth." - George   
   > Valiant, "A Debate on DSM-III"   
   >    
   > "In the world of modern psychiatry, claims can become truth, hopes can   
   > become achievements, and propaganda is taken as science". - Peter   
   > Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry   
   >    
   >    
   > American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical   
   > Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)   
   > "To read about the evolution of the DSM is to know this: It is an   
   > entirely political document. What it includes, what it does not   
   > include, are the result of intensive campaigning, lengthy negotiating,   
   > infighting, and power plays." - Louise Armstrong, And They Call It   
   > Help: The Psychiatric Policing of America's Children   
   >    
   > See excerpts and critical analysis of key sections of the DSM-IV.   
   >    
   > The psychiatric labels assigned by medical doctors and psychiatrists   
   > are based upon shoddy science. The list of "mental health disorders"   
   > is constantly expanding. Why? Because labels figure prominently in   
   > deciding whose psychotherapy will be paid by insurance companies, who   
   > will be hospitalized against their will, who may be declared by a   
   > court of law to be incompetent or too disturbed to have custody of   
   > their children, who will be allowed to grant or withhold permission to   
   > perform surgery on their bodies, and on and on.   
   >    
   > How are decisions made about who is normal? Paula Caplan,   
   > psychologist, as a former consultant to those who construct the "bible   
   > of the mental-health professions," the DSM, offers an insider's look   
   > at the process by which decisions about abnormality are made. To a   
   > large extent scientific methods and evidence are disregarded as the   
   > handbook develops. Below is an excerpt from a book by Paula Caplan on   
   > this subject.   
   >    
   > They Say You’re Crazy   
   > by Paula J. Caplan, Ph.D.   
   >    
   > Preface   
   > I have written this book with a very limited purpose in mind: to help   
   > people see how decisions are made about who is normal. I believe that   
   > knowing how such decisions are made can help a person overcome the   
   > damage that is done to so many who are called - or who consider   
   > themselves - abnormal. As a clinical and research psychologist who for   
   > some years worked as a psychotherapist, I have seen a great many   
   > people who have suffered such harm. As a former consultant to those   
   > who construct the world’s most influential manual of alleged mental   
   > illness, the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and   
   > Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), I have had an insider’s   
   > look at the process by which decisions about abnormality are made. As   
   > a longtime specialist in teaching and writing about research methods,   
   > I have been able to assess and monitor the truly astonishing extent to   
   > which scientific methods and evidence are disregarded as the handbook   
   > is being developed and revised.   
   >    
   > I have made no attempt to document the long, horrific history of   
   > mistreatments and misdiagnoses by mental health professionals of all   
   > kinds, since others have done so in remarkable books. Mistreatment is   
   > an almost inevitable result of diagnosis that is not done with a sense   
   > of responsibility and humanity. My primary focus in this book, though,   
   > is on the here and now and on how the most powerful mental health   
   > enterprise in the world - the American Psychiatric Association - is   
   > defining abnormality, mental illness, or mental disorder, rather than   
   > on the definitions’ consequences. The point is not that decisions   
   > about who is normal are riddled with personal biases and political   
   > considerations but rather that, by dint of a handful of influential   
   > professionals’ efforts, those subjective determinants of diagnoses   
   > masquerade as solid science and truth.   
   >    
   > I would ask readers to do me the favor of remembering, as you read my   
   > book, that this is neither an anti-psychiatry nor a "Let’s-trash-all-   
   > therapists" book. Its main focus is quite specifically on the   
   > disingenuous and dishonest process of constructing the world’s most   
   > influential handbook of "mental disorders."   
   >    
   > This book is also not much about whether most of what is called mental   
   > illness has a biological basis or about the "medicalization" of what   
   > Thomas Szasz refers to as people’s "problems in living," although I do   
   > refer to this issue several times. I do believe that there may be some   
   > biological or physiological basis for some of the things that are   
   > currently called psychiatric disorders. However, so much of the   
   > research on these possible causes is so deeply flawed that it seems   
   > dangerous to draw very definite conclusions about them. R. Walter   
   > Heinrichs, for instance, recently wrote a thoughtful review of seventy   
   > years of research on what "schizophrenia" might be, how variously "it"   
   > has been defined, what might cause "it," and what "treatments" might   
   > be helpful for "it." His conclusion was that very little is known or   
   > understood and that the label still suffers from what he calls "a   
   > heterogeneity problem," a polite way of saying it is so variously   
   > applied that it is losing much of its meaning. This is particularly   
   > worrying both because research in this area has such a long history   
   > and because it has generally been assumed that whatever   
   > "schizophrenia" is, it is known to be genetically based. Now, it   
   > appears, what seemed certain is not.   
   >    
      
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