The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry

The usefulness of the fifth version of the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual of Mental Disorders, which has traditionally played a large role in the diagnosis of mental disease, has been a huge point of controversy within the psychological science community lately.  The National Institute for Mental Health, the largest funder for mental health research in the US, has officially withdrawn its support for the new version. The NIMH says  there is no objective laboratory measure for diagnosis in the new manual and that it “lacks validity.” This hour on Focus, host Jim Meadows talks with author and psychotherapist Gary Greenberg about the controversy over the new manual and why it’s an issue that so many mental health professionals have questions about the manual’s validity.