I know it is hard to believe. Something about psychiatry in the NY Times that is not spun as negatively as possible. One blogger referred to the phenomenon as "New York Times Psychiatry". But today there is a positive review of the addiction section of DSM5. No spin on how the DSM is a carefully crafted plot by psychiatry to diagnose all Americans with a mental illness or collude with Big Pharma to sell more drugs. Instead an author suggesting that there may be a scientific basis for these decisions. And as we all know, science is a process and not a set of definitive answers. Could science actually be the organizing force in the DSM rather than what we typically hear in the media?
Probably.
This is a brief scholarly essay on the history of the concept of addiction and the current neurobiological underpinnings. It should be no surprise that with the accumulation of knowledge that the concepts of what is an addiction and what is not changes over time. Just like everything else in the DSM and just like everything else in the field of medicine. It is not a conspiracy or a plot - it naturally happens as knowledge accumulates and we get more sophisticated.
George Dawson, MD, DFAPA
Howard Markel. DSM 5 Gets Addiction Right. NY Times June 5, 2012.
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