Psychiatry's Bias Problem

[Butterfly]

Psychiatry's Bias Problem
Feministing
By Courtney
28 January, 2010


http://www.feministing.com/archives/019807.html


The Association for Women in Psychology (AWP) is continually analyzing and advocating about bias, particularly gender-related, in psychiatric diagnosis, but they've got their eyes on the prize these days: the DSMV, set to be published in 2013. For those who aren't familiar, the DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is essentially the bible of psychiatry, the manual by which folks are diagnosed and prescribed treatment. As you probably already know, there have been various controversies about the ways in which disorder is defined and the ways in which various facets of personality, genetics, and a mix of the two are pathologized. There have been five revisions since the DSM was first published in 1952. Each version is concurrent with a new battle over which disorders should be removed and which should be added. These seemingly logistical questions are actually wrestling matches over meaning, culture, gender, sex, race, and science.