The psychiatric oligarchs who medicalise normality

Mental health should be a priority for all societies and its stigma always challenged. However, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that a staggering 25% of people in the United States have a “mental illness.”1 This is so large a figure that there can be only one conclusion: psychiatry is medicalising normality. The definition of a “mental illness” is one of opinion. These opinions are drawn from a small group of psychiatric oligarchs who author the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Their opinions are polluted, however: …