The expanding mental disorders list has many concerned. Even some psychiatrists look upon this broadening of their field dubiously.
The American Psychiatric Association wants the industry’s guide to be changed, as witnessed in the upcoming new edition of their Bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The mental disorders list in this manual has increased, and even has top psychiatrists concerned.
Allen Frances, a psychiatrist who helped write the current guidelines (not the guidelines for the newest edition) thinks the changes in the new addition might increase treatment with dangerous psychiatric drugs, involving people who are actually healthy.
Frances says “Everyday disappointments, sufferings and eccentricities are being redefined as psychiatric disorders, and that could lead to medication treatment.”
When the man who promotes psychiatric drugging gets concerned that things have gone too far, it is probably time for the rest of us to sit up and pay attention.
Frances is not the only one with doubts about the new DSM. The draft of this edition has resulted in a number of practitioners questioning it. For example, common behaviors such as 3 temper tantrums in a week, or lack of sexual arousal are redefined as mental disorders.
Family doctors, used to treating patients according to this authoritative mental disorders list will increase the number of people prescribed dangerous antidepressants. More often than not, medical doctors do not have time for their own research. If they did, they would discover for themselves the wide misery and suffering these harmful drugs have caused.
A letter from last October, sponsored by the American Psychological Association in Washington was signed by over 10,800 people, many of them psychologists, psychiatrists, community activists and counselors.
One of the changes being protested by these and others in the new DSM involves “symptoms” of ADHD. In the current DSM, six symptoms of this unproven condition must be identified for a child to be labeled ADHD. In the new manual, only four are required. Obviously, the pharmaceutical companies are trimming down any reasons not to put an active and healthy child on this debilitating drug.
Children are a cash cow for the pharmaceutical industry. Since the mental disorders list is not subject to any medical tests, any child can be labeled with a mental disorder and prescribed psychiatric drugs.
The more children on drugs, the fatter and happier the executives of the pharmaceutical companies are. But our innocent children are subject to the following possible symptoms from Ritalin:

• Psychotic behavior
• Visual and auditory Hallucinations
• Withdrawal
• Terror
• Screaming
• Agression
• Insomnia
• Convulsions
• Brain Damage

Although there is not a single identified organic cause for ADHD, doctors and researchers in the pay of giant pharmaceutical companies have convinced many parents and educators that it does, indeed exist. And it can only be controlled by the use of this disastrous drug.
But those who are capable of actual research tell a different story.
Fish oil has been found to improve concentration and reduce swings of mood and sleep problems. But fish oil is relatively cheap, and the pharmaceutical companies don’t profit a penny from its sale.
The good news is many are waking up to the mental disorders list fraud. Hopefully it will be in time to save most of our children from the disastrous consequences of psychiatry and their drugs.