Psychiatric bible to add new diagnoses: DSM makeover process shrouded in secrecy

[Natasha]

Psychiatric bible to add new diagnoses: DSM makeover process shrouded in secrecy

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/77790
10/15/2008

In writing his book, Lane was able to get unprecedented access to
internal memos and letters of the American Psychiatric Association's
DSM-III task force. Based on these primary sources, he credits the
rise of the DSM from an obscure tract used mainly by state hospital
hacks to an international bible to one man - Robert Spitzer - who
chaired the task force and handpicked its members from people he
considered "kindred spirits." (Spitzer is perhaps better known among
the general public for his controversial stance that gay people could
be turned heterosexual through reparative therapy.)