In schools throughout the nation, children who are having problems with their academic work, their peers, their teachers, or their families are being labeled by the users of DSM as suffering from disorders that carry labels like Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. These children may be placed in special classes, dismissed from school, or given medication. From prisons to child welfare agencies, DSM is shaping how we think about problems and determining who gets labeled as having a mental disorder.
In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association published its first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), containing a list of 112 mental disorders. DSM-II, published in 1968, consisted of 163 disorders.
In 1980, the third edition, DSM-III, added 112 disorders, bringing the total to 224. Under the lucrative heading of Infancy, Childhood, and Adolescence, 32 new mental disorders were added, including:
- Attention Deficit Disorder
- Developmental Reading Disorder
- Developmental Arithmetic Disorder
- Developmental Language Disorder
- Developmental Writing Disorder
- Developmental Articulation Disorder
- Serious Reading Disorder
- Written Expression Disorder
- Mathematics Disorder
- Spelling Disorder
Dr. Fred A. Baughman, Jr., has discovered and described real diseases. Finding no abnormalityno sign of diseasein children said to have ADD/ADHD and learning disabilities, he writes of them as inventions, contrivances and fraud.
Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, says, The conventional definition of child psychiatry is that it is a medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental diseases that afflict children. From a sociological viewpoint, child psychiatry is a secular institution for regulating domestic relations. From my point of view, it is a form of child abuse.
