The Selling of DSM: Mthe Rhetoric of Science in Psychiatry (Social problems & social issues) Book

The Selling of DSM offers a provocative interpretation of the circumstances, activities, and research that produced a revolutionary change in the way psychiatrists and other mental health professionals approach mental illness. When it was first published in 1980, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition - universally known as DSM-III -embodied a radical, new method for identifying psychiatric illness. DSM-III was often referred to as the "psychiatric Bible," and it was used to challenge the pervasive criticism that psychiatric diagnoses were unreliable and invalid. Kirk and Kutchins challenge the generally accepted understanding about the research data and the process that led to DSM-III. Their original and controversial thesis, based on a detailed re-analysis of key scientific articles, is strikingly different from the widely adopted view that the new manual was a triumph of science. Instead, The Selling of DSM concentrates on the way that a small group of researchers interpreted their findings about a specific problem - psychiatric reliability - to promote their beliefs about mental illness and to challenge the then-dominant Freudian paradigm. The Selling of DSM explains how the rhetoric of science, rather than scientific data, was used by the developers of DSM-III to promote their aims and to buttress the dominant position of psychiatry within the mental health field.Read More