It has often been said that to name something is to own it, or at least give it meaning. This is generally true as a marketing concept, but we would think perhaps it’s less true in an exacting field such as medicine. However that has been the underlying idea of the American Psychiatric Association in creating and fostering the DSM since 1952.A volume, that tries to define the parameters and terms of mental illness, is without the kind of scientific reliance used even for an auto repair manual. Yet the fifth volume of this work has just been completed. We’ve all heard of it, Doctors rely on it, and it may in fact be detrimental to our mental health...that is, if we could define it. Psychotherapist Gary Greenberg explains in The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry
.My conversation with Gary Greenberg:
