AWP Books

BIAS IN PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS

Paula J. Caplan and Lisa Cosgrove (Editors)
Published October, 2004
Jason Aronson/Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

"Energizing, inspiring, comprehensive, cogent, sane, and balanced. This is a must-read for all mental health professionals and their clients."

Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D., Co-founder of Association for Women in Psychology and National Women's Health Network and author of Women and Madness

"This is an extraordinarily important book. It should be required reading for all mental health professionals and especially for all teaching programs. Further, it could serve as an excellent illustration of the social construction of what comes to be called science. It is that, and also much more than an intellectual exercise because these issues affect profoundly the fate of so many people."

Jean Baker Miller, M.D., Director of Jean Baker Miller
Training Institute and author of Toward a New Psychology of Women

"By unraveling the roles of ideology, socially constructed norms, and commercial interests in psychiatric diagnosis, this valuable book of original essays helps to explain the meteoric rise in psychotropic drug use and the new social trend of psychopharmacophilia."

Sheldon Krimsky, Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University

The public has a right to know that when they go to a therapist, they are almost certain to be given a psychiatric diagnosis, no matter how mild or ordinary their problems might be. It is unlikely that they will be told that a diagnosis will be written forever in their chart and that alarming consequences can result solely from having any psychiatric diagnosis. These consequences range from loss of child custody to denial of health insurance and employment to removal of one's right to make
decisions regarding legal affairs.

It would be disturbing enough if diagnosis was a thoroughly scientific process, but the general public would be surprised to find out that it is not. The unscientific nature creates a vacuum into which biases of all kinds can rush.

In BIAS IN PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS psychologists Paula J. Caplan and Lisa Cosgrove assembled voices of psychotherapists, attorneys, sociologists, historians, and psychologists revealing how gender, race, social class, age, physical disability, and sexual orientation affect the classification of human beings into categories of psychiatric diagnosis. These eye- opening essays expose how little science and how various biases enter into the creation diagnostic labels, and reveal the devastating consequences that may result from a patient's just receiving a diagnostic label. As such, these essays are essential for all mental health professionals.

It is surprising that this kind of work has not previously been published, because it is such a timely and important topic, especially given the skyrocketing use of psychoactive drugs in toddlers, children, and adolescents, as well as in adults, and especially because receiving a psychiatric label vastly increases the chances of being prescribed one or more of these drugs.

This work is unusually compelling because of its real-life relevance for millions of people. Virtually everyone these days has been a therapy patient or has a loved one who has been. In addition, psychiatric diagnosis and biases in diagnosis are increasingly crucial portions of legal proceedings.

BIAS IN PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS is a must-read for doctors, psychology students, psychotherapy patients and their families, and anyone considering psychotherapy.