Is compulsive shopping a mental problem? Do children who continually recoil from sights and sounds suffer from sensory problems — or just need extra attention? Should a fetish be considered a mental disorder, as many now are?
Panels of psychiatrists are hashing out just such questions, and their answers — to be published in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — will have consequences for insurance reimbursement, research and individuals’ psychological identity for years to come.
The process has become such a contentious social and scientific exercise that for the first time the book’s publisher, the American Psychiatric Association, has required its contributors to sign a
nondisclosure agreement,."
Read the rest of this article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/health/18psych.html?ref=health
And in the Wall Street Journal, Psychiatrists respond to the controversy:
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/01/08/psychiatrists-bash-back-at-critics-of-diagnostic-manual-revision/
What do you think?
