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“Unwittingly, the DSM-5 revisionists are contributing to an impoverishment of meaning…”

Very thoughtful essay on the big new Diagnostic and Statistical sampler, bursting with psychiatric diagnoses for everyone in the family. Like Adam Phillips (“[H]appiness is the most conformist of moral aims. For me, there’s a simple test here. Read a really good book on positive psychology, and read a great European novel. And the difference is evident in one thing — the complexity and subtlety of the moral and emotional life of the characters in the European novel are incomparable. Read a positive-psychology book, and what would a happy person look like? He’d look like a Moonie. He’d be empty of idiosyncrasy and the difficult passions.”), Patricia Pearson perceives the philosophical destitution of a culture that’s handed the task of self-consciousness over to clueless family physicians — nice people desperately paging through the DSM for tranquilizers. To be sure, the difficult passions are difficult. That doesn’t mean you should pill them away.

Margaret Soltan, April 29, 2013 4:14PM
Posted in: march of science

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