Abstract

The publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has stirred many emotions both inside and outside of the psychiatric community. But when the director of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, Thomas Insel's, critique of the DSM-5 became public, even some antipsychiatrists were surprised. Insel argued that although the DSM's diagnostic categories have become the standard to obtain research grants and to conduct trials, they are not based on objective measures, lack validity, do not make accurate predictions about illness trajectory, and fail to map onto findings from neuroscience and genetics. In contrast with the...