A New DSM For Crazy Times
How about an alternative version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) that shifts the focus to those trying to define and control what "normal" is? A version that highlights the absurdities of the world we accept as normal. Let’s start with a new category: a condition for people so fixated on a narrow and sterile view of normalcy that it leads to extreme states of fear, hate, and the normalization of violence toward others. This is a dangerous condition that should be treated with everything the biomedical model has to offer—electroshock therapy, highly addictive drugs, conversion therapy, forced hospitalization... let's do whatever it takes before more people get hurt! More profits for big pharma, as well! We could call this condition Magaphrenia.
You may think this sounds ridiculous, but here are just a few examples from the DSM's history, showing how psychiatry has pathologized some truly bizarre things in the past—and in some cases, still does.
Women were once routinely diagnosed with hysteria, a diagnosis that wasn’t removed from the DSM until 1980. This was a useful diagnosis in the 1950’s when women were having some normal reactions to what was expected of them.
Homosexuality was once listed as a sociopathic personality disorder. It wasn’t until 1987 that this was removed from the DSM.
Psychiatry’s long history of racism is well-documented. Drapetomania was once described as a condition causing slaves to feel an intense urge to escape. Benjamin Rush, often called the “father of American psychiatry” and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, described Negroes as suffering from an affliction called Negritude—a supposed mild form of leprosy with a cure that was, quite shockingly, to become white.
Prolonged Grief Disorder(PSG) is a new addition to the DSM-5. Naltrexone is being considered for this new disorder. A drug currently used for addiction. For an adult if you are grieving the loss of a child for more than a year you suddenly have this condition on day 366. A child has 6 months before it becomes a disorder.
They're definitely making it harder to distinguish the real disorders from our made up version.
Perhaps, making up new disorders should be described in our new DSM as an actual disorder. Pathologizing Everything Syndrome (PES).
How about a diagnosable condition for people who don’t identify with any conditions. Granted this condition is becoming rare but it must be very lonely without such an identification. This could be a windfall for the pharmaceutical industry!
In the current DSM, narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a condition characterized by grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy. A clear blind spot that seems self reflective on aspects of psychiatry itself. I don’t think this gets diagnosed enough and our world is effectively being run by people with this condition. Perhaps, we can just rename this one for our new version. How about White Supremacy Disorder or Trump Syndrome?
Just a little humor to point out the insanity of how we view our mental well being, how normal is defined for us, and how nuts it all really looks!
Other ideas welcome!
Much Love!
The Mad Preschool Teacher
He/Him
Great post, loved the humorous points :) There is an effort to build a new model called HiTOP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_Taxonomy_of_Psychopathology) which focuses on symptoms and evidence based correlations between them. Hopefully it will gain steam and take over the DSM. The arbitrary armchair categorizations that psychiatrists have been making are obviously inadequate and failure to capture so much of the nuance of human behavior.
Agreed! Thanks for the heads up on HiTOP. I hope any new system will have more fluid and empowering language supporting an individuals agency and unique ability to heal and transform . Thanks Erick!!