The end of mental disorders

The current controversy over the DSM-5 is an interesting study in how psychology has at least one foot in the past as it attempts to go forward. This is the psychiatric “bible” of mental disorders used to justify medications, services, benefits, and insurance to people labeled variously with “mental disorders.”

One of the more compelling criticisms of the whole effort is that it reflects outdated science and none of the more relevant and validated sciences like the neurosciences.

The provocation of the neurosciences and cognitive behavioral sciences is that choiceful behavior, regardless of diagnosis, has direct impact on the chemical structures of the brain that in the old sciences are held responsible for behavior.

The future of healthy behavior is requiring behavioral literacy from birth and before in parents and families. The unintended consequences of labels are the continuation of old sciences that have no practical validity because they create the very external locus of control that makes people give up hope in their own self-efficacy.

Fortunately, this is an actionable problem.