Psychiatric Labeling Action Network for Truth

by Dr. Paula Caplan, Clinical & Research Psychologist, Harvard University

Alarmed by the massive numbers of people who have been seriously harmed over the decades because of psychiatric diagnosis, which is not scientifically grounded, rarely helps, and often has negative consequences, and knowing that the next edition of DSM will likely be sent to press this coming May at the American Psychiatric Association convention, we have decided it is time to stop asking the DSM editors to listen and instead to take actions. The first two actions of our PLAN T Alliance (Psychiatric Labeling Action Network for Truth) are…

Boycott the DSM

and

Call for Congressional Hearings about Psychiatric Diagnosis

The following video and information was uploaded by prokopton on Dec 4, 2007

The idea of mental illness as a biological entity is easy to refute. In 1988, Seymour S. Kety, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience in Psychiatry, and Steven Matthysse, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychobiology, both of Harvard Medical School, said “an impartial reading of the recent literature does not provide the hoped-for clarification of the catecholamine hypotheses, nor does compelling evidence emerge for other biological differences that may characterize the brains of patients with mental disease.” 

In 1992 a panel of experts assembled by the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment concluded: “Many questions remain about the biology of mental disorders. In fact, research has yet to identify specific biological causes for any of these disorders. … Mental disorders are classified on the basis of symptoms because there are as yet no biological markers or laboratory tests for them.”

Columbia University psychiatry professor Jack M. Gorman, M.D., said “We really do not know what causes any psychiatric illness.” Another Columbia University psychiatry professor, Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., said “It is generally unrecognized that psychiatrists are the only medical specialists who treat disorders that, by definition, have no definitively known causes or cures. … A diagnosis should indicate the cause of a mental disorder, but as discussed later, since the etiologies of most mental disorders are unknown, current diagnostic systems can’t reflect them.” Psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., said “there is no evidence that any of the common psychological or psychiatric disorders have a genetic or biological component.”