Politics and the DSM
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Politics and the DSM

Politics and the DSM

March 13, 2010

One of my weekly treats is the arrival in my inbox of Talk Talk, excerpts from a dialogue Fred Newman and Jackie Salit have after watching the political talk shows on TV.  Newman, co-founder with me of the Institute, is many other things – among them a philosopher and astute political strategist. Salit is president of the Committee for an Unified Independent Party, Inc. (CUIP) and executive editor of The Neo-Independent magazine.  I always learn something from reading their conversations, especially when they combine two seemingly disparate topics.  The February 21 column, “Brokent Government, Unscientific Psychology,” was especially fascinating. Here’s how it opens:

Salit: There was something strangely similar for me about the political discussions that we watched on Hardball, Morning Joe and CNN’s Campbell Brown and the PBS NewsHour discussion about mental illness and the DSM-V. DSM stands for the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, the diagnostic guide of the American Psychiatric Association. DSM-V is the proposed update of DSM-IV. I’m trying to think how to characterize the similarity. One word comes to mind…

Newman: Try “mythology.”

You can read the rest at Talk Talk

1 Comment
  • Tim Buchanan
    Posted at 16:35h, 16 March

    Well my thought has to do with the idea that we have out lived the importance of knowledge as the measure of academic or social status. I was rereading Charles Olson’s essay “The Gate and the Center” in which he mentions the concept of knowledge as not appropriate if not part of a personal history. Now I must work more as a teacher of adolescents to make developmental engagement a reality.
    I need further understanding of the options since I recognize the failure and the futility of the classic model; the one Olson blame on Socrates. The blasphemy! Just another turn of the screw –
    I feel fortunate that I have found your lead but the energy remains thin and the cut teachers send more troops solution does so much to aggravate the elderly.

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