Psychiatric Diagnosis and the New Bible; The Transformation of Psychiatric Troubles; The Social Control of Error; Making a Manual; A Careful Look at the Field Trials; Reliability and the Remarkable Achievement; The Art of Claim-Making; Securing Diagnostic Turf; The Social Context of Diagnostic Error
Stuart A. Kirk
-Kirk and Kutchins provide a detailed and thoroughly documented
critique of the development process of the American Psychiatric
Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, Third Edition (DSM-III), and of the resulting product.
The authors' contention that DSM-III does not provide a
diagnostic/classification system of high scientific credibility is
a recurrent theme, and problems of diagnostic unreliability, in
particular, are emphasized. But, more than the product, it is the
process through which DSM-III was developed that comes in for
detailed description and commentary. The role of Robert Spitzer,
head of the DSM-III Task Force, and the extent to which he
alledgedly permitted political as well as scientific considerations
to influence the DSM-III development are the book's dominant
themes. Serious concerns by dynamically oriented psychiatrists are
documented; and from outside psychiatry, the American Psychological
Association objections to the medical model and to the definition
of mental disorders as a subset of medical disorders are noted.
Recommended for undergraduate and graduate psychology collections
and for medical libraries.- --P. G. Romine, Choice -Like the Zuni,
whose intricate classification system projected their clan-based
social order onto the natural world, modern psychiatry uses its
classification system to embed its professional authority in the
very definition of mental I llness. The official psychiatric
nosology, published in the American Psychiatric Association's
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 3d edition (DSM-III), is thus
both an instrument of professional dominance and the focus of
resistance on the part of dominated mental health workers. The
Selling of DSM is one such act of resistance, but one that offers a
penetrating analysis of the political and rhetorical strategies by
which the DSM-III was instituted. . . . This book is a critique of
the field of mental health services that will help workers in that
area take a more critical and reflexive stance toward DSM-III, IV,
and beyond. For those interested in the sociology of psychiatry or
the professions, it offers a fascinating, but decidedly partial,
case study.- --Daniel Breslau, Contemporary Sociology -The Selling
of DSM is a well-documented expose of the pretense that psychiatric
diagnoses are the names of genuine diseases and of the
authentication of this fraud by an unholy alliance of the media,
the government, and psychiatry. I recommend this book to anyone
concerned about the catastrophic economic and moral conse-quences
of psychiatrizing the human predicament.- --Thomas Szasz, M.D.,
State Universityof New York, Health Science Center, Syracuse -The
book is fascinating, hard hitting, and well documented....Kirk and
Kutchins describe the interlocked scientific and political issues
clearly, precisely, and thoroughly. They show, convincingly, that
DSM does not provide the diagnostic reliability its backers
claim... .Kirk and Kutchins' judgments and interpretations are
harsh, but also genuine. Supporters of DSM will recognize the
events, structures, and processes described....- --John Mirowsky,
Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
-These authors have offered the reader their courage and their
scholarship in this important book. Their analysis of the icon of
DSM is both incisive and balanced, and it should provide all mental
health practitioners fuel for thought and public debate.- --Carol
H. Meyer, School of Social Work, Columbia University
"Kirk and Kutchins provide a detailed and thoroughly documented
critique of the development process of the American Psychiatric
Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, Third Edition (DSM-III), and of the resulting product.
The authors' contention that DSM-III does not provide a
diagnostic/classification system of high scientific credibility is
a recurrent theme, and problems of diagnostic unreliability, in
particular, are emphasized. But, more than the product, it is the
process through which DSM-III was developed that comes in for
detailed description and commentary. The role of Robert Spitzer,
head of the DSM-III Task Force, and the extent to which he
alledgedly permitted political as well as scientific considerations
to influence the DSM-III development are the book's dominant
themes. Serious concerns by dynamically oriented psychiatrists are
documented; and from outside psychiatry, the American Psychological
Association objections to the medical model and to the definition
of mental disorders as a subset of medical disorders are noted.
Recommended for undergraduate and graduate psychology collections
and for medical libraries." --P. G. Romine, Choice "Like the Zuni,
whose intricate classification system projected their clan-based
social order onto the natural world, modern psychiatry uses its
classification system to embed its professional authority in the
very definition of mental I llness. The official psychiatric
nosology, published in the American Psychiatric Association's
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 3d edition (DSM-III), is thus
both an instrument of professional dominance and the focus of
resistance on the part of dominated mental health workers. The
Selling of DSM is one such act of resistance, but one that offers a
penetrating analysis of the political and rhetorical strategies by
which the DSM-III was instituted. . . . This book is a critique of
the field of mental health services that will help workers in that
area take a more critical and reflexive stance toward DSM-III, IV,
and beyond. For those interested in the sociology of psychiatry or
the professions, it offers a fascinating, but decidedly partial,
case study." --Daniel Breslau, Contemporary Sociology "The Selling
of DSM is a well-documented expose of the pretense that psychiatric
diagnoses are the names of genuine diseases and of the
authentication of this fraud by an unholy alliance of the media,
the government, and psychiatry. I recommend this book to anyone
concerned about the catastrophic economic and moral conse-quences
of psychiatrizing the human predicament." --Thomas Szasz, M.D.,
State Universityof New York, Health Science Center, Syracuse "The
book is fascinating, hard hitting, and well documented....Kirk and
Kutchins describe the interlocked scientific and political issues
clearly, precisely, and thoroughly. They show, convincingly, that
DSM does not provide the diagnostic reliability its backers
claim... .Kirk and Kutchins' judgments and interpretations are
harsh, but also genuine. Supporters of DSM will recognize the
events, structures, and processes described...." --John Mirowsky,
Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"These authors have offered the reader their courage and their
scholarship in this important book. Their analysis of the icon of
DSM is both incisive and balanced, and it should provide all mental
health practitioners fuel for thought and public debate." --Carol
H. Meyer, School of Social Work, Columbia University
"Kirk and Kutchins provide a detailed and thoroughly documented
critique of the development process of the American Psychiatric
Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, Third Edition (DSM-III), and of the resulting product.
The authors' contention that DSM-III does not provide a
diagnostic/classification system of high scientific credibility is
a recurrent theme, and problems of diagnostic unreliability, in
particular, are emphasized. But, more than the product, it is the
process through which DSM-III was developed that comes in for
detailed description and commentary. The role of Robert Spitzer,
head of the DSM-III Task Force, and the extent to which he
alledgedly permitted political as well as scientific considerations
to influence the DSM-III development are the book's dominant
themes. Serious concerns by dynamically oriented psychiatrists are
documented; and from outside psychiatry, the American Psychological
Association objections to the medical model and to the definition
of mental disorders as a subset of medical disorders are noted.
Recommended for undergraduate and graduate psychology collections
and for medical libraries." --P. G. Romine, Choice "Like the Zuni,
whose intricate classification system projected their clan-based
social order onto the natural world, modern psychiatry uses its
classification system to embed its professional authority in the
very definition of mental I llness. The official psychiatric
nosology, published in the American Psychiatric Association's
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 3d edition (DSM-III), is thus
both an instrument of professional dominance and the focus of
resistance on the part of dominated mental health workers. The
Selling of DSM is one such act of resistance, but one that offers a
penetrating analysis of the political and rhetorical strategies by
which the DSM-III was instituted. . . . This book is a critique of
the field of mental health services that will help workers in that
area take a more critical and reflexive stance toward DSM-III, IV,
and beyond. For those interested in the sociology of psychiatry or
the professions, it offers a fascinating, but decidedly partial,
case study." --Daniel Breslau, Contemporary Sociology "The Selling
of DSM is a well-documented expose of the pretense that psychiatric
diagnoses are the names of genuine diseases and of the
authentication of this fraud by an unholy alliance of the media,
the government, and psychiatry. I recommend this book to anyone
concerned about the catastrophic economic and moral conse-quences
of psychiatrizing the human predicament." --Thomas Szasz, M.D.,
State Universityof New York, Health Science Center, Syracuse "The
book is fascinating, hard hitting, and well documented....Kirk and
Kutchins describe the interlocked scientific and political issues
clearly, precisely, and thoroughly. They show, convincingly, that
DSM does not provide the diagnostic reliability its backers
claim... .Kirk and Kutchins' judgments and interpretations are
harsh, but also genuine. Supporters of DSM will recognize the
events, structures, and processes described...." --John Mirowsky,
Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"These authors have offered the reader their courage and their
scholarship in this important book. Their analysis of the icon of
DSM is both incisive and balanced, and it should provide all mental
health practitioners fuel for thought and public debate." --Carol
H. Meyer, School of Social Work, Columbia University
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