User:Npkozlov/sandbox2

Paula Caplan criticizes the field of psychiatry’s methods of diagnosis in her book as well as going into the impact of a diagnosis. She looks into the various problems with having one doctor make a life changing diagnosis, and provides evidence for how a diagnosis is influenced by political and person bias, and is profit driven oftentimes. Caplan looks into how diagnosis’ based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) can easily be called simple problems in life. The inclusion of a label to these people singles them out and can allow the illness to manifest itself and become a worse problem than it was originally. These labels are harmful to patients and cause both personal and material harm to those labeled.

Furthermore, Paula Caplan’s research discusses the fact that many disorders listed within the DSM manual do not actually base diagnoses on reputable scientific studies. Caplan discusses her stance in an interview with Alexandra Rutherford for Psychology’s Feminist Voices. She explains that she got involved with the DSM after hearing a proposed diagnosis which targeted female stereotypes, and had no scientific studies backing it up: Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. This disorder, proposed for the new DSM manual (the DSM-III-R), is harmful for the female gender due to its apparent attempt to validate harmful societal stereotypes. The disorder is in fact disproven by studies that find male irritability to be just as prevalent as female irritability, regardless of time of month (Caplan). She describes conversations she had with Robert Spitzer’s team, who was making the DSM III-R, in which they agreed with her critiques on the proposed Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. Nonetheless, this disorder was still included in the updated DSM manual. Not only are the symptoms used to diagnose patients not based on quantitative data, but the actual diagnoses listed in the DSM appear to have questionable accuracy as well. The inclusion of disorders which target stereotypes and lack scientific backing discredits the DSM as a reputable diagnostic tool. There is an evident need for a diagnostic manual which employs stricter requirements in the classification of disorders, such as scientific data proving that the disorder exists.