Saturday, July 19, 2003

Psychiatric Classifications Not Based on Evidence

The Atlanta Journal Constitution has picked up on that study in the BMJ:

Specifically, the researchers, writing in the July 19 issue of the British Medical Journal, attack the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) -- the bible for psychiatric diagnoses -- for failing to reflect the biology of different conditions.

[...]

Most people would agree that a fundamental problem in psychiatry concerns categories that are descriptive, arrived at by consensus among experts and not through evidence. The simple reason is that experts don't have the kind of pathophysiological evidence required to create and sustain clear-cut categories.


(emphasis added)

need I say more?

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