Diagnosing the DSM

For the upcoming revision of the the upcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Diseases (DSM-5)—the psychiatry profession’s main diagnostic manual—the American Psychiatric Association asked for public comments on proposed changes. As economist Steve Landsburg notes :

Medpage Today reports that the revision has already been changed several times in response to these comments. These include several areas within the Sexual and Gender Identities categories, and modifications to the criteria for adjustment disorders and eating disorders.

By contrast, the American Physical Society is not asking the general public to weigh in on the prospects for supersymmetry, nor is the American Economic Association surveying the general public on the properties of dynamic stochastic general equilibria. So much for any pretense that psychiatry is a science.