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smaley's picture

One thing that kind of

One thing that kind of bothers me about DSM 5, and the DSM in general, is how much private funding it seems to get, and how heavily it is relied upon by psychiatrists and insurance companies.  While I think that there do need to be guidelines that list the symptoms of each disorder, among other things, I feel that heavy reliance on such a book, can be a dangerous thing, especially if it prevents doctors from treating each of their patients as individuals.  With doctors constantly labeling everyone who comes through their door, based on the guidelines from the DSM, this could encourage stigmatization.  I feel like such a book is useful as a loose guideline, but as a strict set of rules it could cause more harm than good.  In fact, the only ones who would truly benefit from such a strict rule book would be the insurance companies.

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