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There is a brewing crisis in the mental health field: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–the book that defines and organizes constellations of symptoms into categories with names we call a diagnosis is undergoing a revision. The reversion called DSM-5 (we are currently using the DM-IV published in 1994) is expected May, 2013. The contents of the revision will have widespread implications for the health, wellbeing, culture, and economics of our world for years into the future.
The publishers of the DSM-5–the American Psychiatric Association, are revising the manual with some degree of transparency. The preliminary draft may be viewed on their website where comments have been invited.
Of concern to me and to many of my colleagues is the revisions’ emphasis on the biochemical basis for human distress at the exclusion of other environmental, cultural, familial, spiritual, and social factors. To be dismissive of solid empirical research that attempts to expand our knowing of what it is to be human in favor of reducing phenomenal experience to the mere firing of neurons is narrow-minded. We are all whole people with a mind, body, and spirit that work together. Yet, in the current DM-5 revision proposal, for example, bereavement–a natural human process, is set to be labeled as major depressive disorder. This proposed effort to pathologize the natural grief response to loss is not only deeply disturbing, in my opinion, it will be unhelpful to the process of healing. The loss of a loved one, the loss of one’s health, a job, or a pet are all experiences that occur in the lives of healthy, engaged, and functioning human beings. To be in bereavement means we are living. Sometimes living hurts. The way to move through such an experience is to feel it. Rarely, if ever, must one medicate to heal grief.
The evolution of humanity calls on us to develop skill and competence to embrace our disowned parts. To split off human suffering as a biochemical process in disregard to solid empirical evidence that also acknowledges the complexity and texture of the transpersonal human experience is irresponsible. -Karen Gorrin
There is a petition circulating that expresses such concerns. This petition is sponsored by an impressive group: Society for Humanistic Psychology, Division 32 of the American Psychological Association, in alliance with Division of Developmental Psychology (Division 7 of APA), Society for Community Research and Action: Division of Community Psychology (Division 27 of APA), Society for Group Psychology and Psychotherapy (Division 49 of APA), The Association for Women in Psychology, The Society for Descriptive Psychology, and The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP).
I urge you to visit Open Letter to DM-5 and read the petition. If you are in agreement, kindly sign on in support of the petition to the DSM5 Task Force of the American Psychiatric Association and make your voice heard.
