Psychiatric Diagnoses Found to Be “Scientifically Meaningless”
Psychiatric Diagnoses Found to Be “Scientifically Meaningless”
“Diagnostic manuals such as the DSM were created to provide a common diagnostic language for mental health professionals and attempt to provide a definitive list of mental health problems, including their symptoms.
The main findings of the research were:
• Psychiatric diagnoses all use different decision-making rules
• There is a huge amount of overlap in symptoms between diagnoses
• Almost all diagnoses mask the role of trauma and adverse events
• Diagnoses tell us little about the individual patient and what treatment they need
The authors conclude that diagnostic labelling represents ‘a disingenuous categorical system’.
Lead researcher Dr Kate Allsopp, University of Liverpool, said: “Although diagnostic labels create the illusion of an explanation they are scientifically meaningless and can create stigma and prejudice. I hope these findings will encourage mental health professionals to think beyond diagnoses and consider other explanations of mental distress, such as trauma and other adverse life experiences.”
Professor Peter Kinderman, University of Liverpool, said: “This study provides yet more evidence that the biomedical diagnostic approach in psychiatry is not fit for purpose. Diagnoses frequently and uncritically reported as ‘real illnesses’ are in fact made on the basis of internally inconsistent, confused and contradictory patterns of largely arbitrary criteria. The diagnostic system wrongly assumes that all distress results from disorder, and relies heavily on subjective judgments about what is normal.””
I was a practicing psychiatrist for 45 years. This article tells the truth as I experienced it.