Boycott the DSM

DSM = Diagnosis as a Source of Money

[Otherwise known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM is the engine used by the psychiatric industry to drive a $330 billion psychiatric industry, and is an elaborate pseudoscientific sham.]

• Quoting from the “Boycott the DSM” petition on Change.org; sign this petition to pledge not to purchase any edition of the DSM:

“It is increasingly clear that the editors of the major psychiatric manual, which reaps huge profits for the American Psychiatric Association that publishes it, are ignoring the massive evidence of harm done by the labels of previous editions of the manual and of likely harm from what they plan to put in the edition they are now preparing.”

• Quoting from the “Everyone who cares about the harm done by psychiatric diagnosis” petition on Change.org; sign this petition to endorse the call for Congressional hearings about psychiatric diagnosis:

“Few laypeople or even therapists realize that psychiatric diagnosis is not a scientific endeavor, although some of the most powerful people and organizations in the mental health field assert that it is. As a result, millions of people who seek help because they are suffering have no idea that they are not being diagnosed in scientific ways and thus that their treatment largely lacks a scientific basis; nor do they know that in important ways their treatment may be experimental because they are given labels that may not stand for anything that has been proven to exist.”

• You might be interested in this recent Psychology Today article, “Science Isn’t Golden — Will the APA Listen to the Voices of Those Harmed? Complaints about psychiatric diagnosis and the APA’s response so far”, Published on October 1, 2012 by Paula J. Caplan, Ph.D.

• Watch the CCHR documentary DVD, “DSM – Psychiatry’s Deadliest Scam” described below. The fifth edition of the DSM is scheduled for release in May 2013, including symptoms of “mental disorders” such as excessive time and energy devoted to health concerns, decreased need for sleep, more talkative than usual, increase in goal-directed activity, restlessness or feeling keyed up or on edge, avoidance of activities with possible negative outcomes, procrastination due to worries, and distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings. Send your comments and concerns about psychiatry’s deadliest scam to apa@psych.org.

• Finally, this quote from Allen Frances, professor emeritus at Duke University and chairman of the DSM-IV task force: “It is fair to say that DSM 5 has become an object of general public and professional scorn.”