Saving Normal : An Insider's Revolt Against Out-of-control Psychiatric Diagnosis, Dsm-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life

Readers will recognise the mythical force of a forgotten warrior hero returning from obscurity to achieve deliverance from a villainous tyrant. Saving Normal is marketed along these lines. Allen Frances, Chair of the DSM-IV Task Force, described on the flyleaf as once the most powerful man in psychiatry, has emerged reluctantly from retirement to do battle with the evil excesses of DSM-5. This has fallen into the wrong hands (a coalition between the American Psychiatric Association and extreme commercialism) and has gone bad. Powerful forces are trying to convince us that we are all sick, thus robbing humanity of its essential normality. Not to mention making billions of dollars on the way.Frances writes well, and is no stranger to hyperbole. Profits are reaped not earned. Psychiatric medications are star earners for drug companies. Researchers have inserted pet diagnoses, which are rampantly hyperinflated. DSM-5 has become an obese monster, and a publishing profit centre for the APA. Such rhetoric can border on paranoia, but Frances believes that psychiatric overdiagnosis is an exemplar of the bloat and waste that follows throughout US medicine when commercial interests hijack the medical enterprise.After such a rousing analysis, and a thought-provoking outline of diagnostic fads, past, present and future, Frances then reveals his practical road-map back to a sane and safe psychiatry. Big Pharma, identified as one of the main adversaries, is to be tamed. No more free lunches, no more off-label marketing, no more beautiful salespeople congregating in doctors’ waiting rooms, no more co-opting of ‘thought leaders’. More contentiously he also seeks an end to campaigns for disease awareness. To counter the excesses of DSM-5, Frances advocates careful stepped diagnosis, moving from attempts to normalise, through watchful waiting and minimal interventions, towards brief counselling, and finally definitive diagnosis and treatment. While acknowledged as innovation From "the most powerful psychiatrist in America" (New York Times) and "the man who wrote the book on mental illness" (Wired), a deeply fascinating and urgently important critique of the widespread medicalization of normality Anyone living a full, rich life experiences ups and downs, stresses, disappointments, sorrows, and setbacks. These challenges are a normal part of being human, and they should not be treated as psychiatric disease. However, today millions of people who are really no more than "worried well" are being diagnosed as having a mental disorder and are receiving unnecessary treatment. In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, warns that mislabeling everyday problems as mental illness has shocking implications for individuals and society: stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, misallocation of medical resources, and draining of the budgets of families and the nation. We also shift responsibility for our mental well-being away from our own naturally resilient and self-healing brains, which have kept us sane for hundreds of thousands of years, and into the hands of "Big Pharma," who are reaping multi-billion-dollar profits. Frances cautions that the new edition of the "bible of psychiatry," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5), will turn our current diagnostic inflation into hyperinflation by converting millions of "normal" people into "mental patients." Alarmingly, in DSM-5, normal grief will become "Major Depressive Disorder"; the forgetting seen in old age is "Mild Neurocognitive Disorder"; temper tantrums are "Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder"; worrying about a medical illness is "Somatic Symptom Disorder"; gluttony is "Binge Eating Disorder"; and most of us will qualify for adult "Attention Deficit Disorder." What's more, all of these newly invented conditions will worsen the cruel paradox of the mental health industry: those who desperately need psychiatric help are left shamefully neglected, while the "worried well" are given the bulk of the treatment, often at their own detriment. Masterfully charting the history of psychiatric fads throughout history, Frances argues that whenever we arbitrarily label another aspect of the human condition a "disease," we further chip away at our human adaptability and diversity, dulling the full palette of what is normal and losing something fundamental of ourselves in the process. Saving Normal is a call to all of us to reclaim the full measure of our humanity.--Publisher International Bestseller • "An extraordinarily important book." —Marcia Angell, Harvard Medical School A deeply fascinating and urgently important critique of the widespread medicalization of normality, by "one of the world's most prominent psychiatrists" (The Atlantic) Anyone living a full, rich life experiences ups and downs, stresses, disappointments, sorrows, and setbacks. Today, however, millions of people who are really no more than "worried well" are being diagnosed as having a mental disorder and receiving unnecessary treatment. In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, explains why stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, the misallocation of medical resources, and the draining of the budgets of families and the nation. We also shift responsibility for our mental well-being away from our own naturally resilient brains and into the hands of "Big Pharma," who are reaping multi-billion-dollar profits. Frances cautions that the newest edition of the "bible of psychiatry," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5), is turning our current diagnostic inflation into hyperinflation by converting millions of "normal" people into "mental patients." Saving Normal is a call to all of us to reclaim the full measure of our humanity. "Anyone living a full, rich life experiences ups and downs, stresses, disappointments, sorrows, and setbacks. Today, however, millions of people who are really no more than "worried well" are being diagnosed as having a mental disorder and receiving unnecessary treatment. In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, explains why stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, the misallocation of medical resources, and the draining of the budgets of families and the nation. We also shift responsibility for our mental well-being away from our own naturally resilient brains and into the hands of "Big Pharma," who are reaping multi-billion-dollar profits. Frances cautions that the newest edition of the "bible of psychiatry," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5), is turning our current diagnostic inflation into hyperinflation by converting millions of "normal" people into "mental patients." Saving Normal is a call to all of us to reclaim the full measure of our humanity."--Back cover In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, explains why stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, the misallocation of medical resources, and the draining of the budgets of families and the nation. We also shift responsibility for our mental well-being away from our own naturally resilient brains and into the hands of "Big Pharma," who are reaping multi-billion-dollar profits. Frances cautions that the newest edition of the "bible of psychiatry," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5), is turning our current diagnostic inflation into hyperinflation by converting millions of "normal" people into "mental patients." Saving Normal is a call to all of us to reclaim the full measure of our humanity. -- Back Cover Frances Argues That The New Edition Of The Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders Threatens To Destroy What Is Considered Normal And That Grief, Sorrow, Stress, Disappointment, And Other Feelings Are Part Of Life, Not A Psychiatric Disease. Pt. I. Normality Under Siege : What's Normal And What's Not? ; From Shaman To Shrink ; Diagnostic Inflation -- Pt. Ii. Psychiatric Fads Can Be Bad For Your Health : Fads Of The Past ; Fads Of The Present ; Fads Of The Future -- Pt. Iii. Getting Back To Normal : Taming Diagnostic Inflation ; The Smart Consumer ; The Worst And The Best Of Psychiatry. Allen Frances. Includes Bibliographic References (unnumbered Page 289-304) And Index. Francis argues that the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders threatens to destroy what is considered normal and that grief, sorrow, stress, disappointment, and other feelings are part of life, not a psychiatric disease