Boycott the DSM

Why This Is Important

From the PLAN T Alliance

PLAN T stands for Psychiatric Labeling Action Network for Truth.

It is increasingly clear that the editors of the major psychiatric manual, which reaps huge profits for the American Psychiatric Association that publishes it, are ignoring the massive evidence of harm done by the labels of previous editions of the manual and of likely harm from what they plan to put in the edition they are now preparing. Previous editors ignored the need for both reform of their work and concern for those it harmed, despite letters and petitions representing more than six million people, an effort that we began at an Association for Women in Psychology conference when the manual's third revised edition was being prepared for its 1987 publication. During this past summer, some of us became alarmed by the increasing number of serious problems with the edition being prepared for 2013 publication and recognized the need for action. The pledge we request here is one of the major kinds of action we recommend. It is a boycott. If you, like us, are deeply concerned about the lack of science behind the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the absence of evidence that it helps in identifying effective treatments, the absence of evidence that helps with outcome, and the abundance of evidence of people being seriously harmed by receiving a psychiatric label, as well as because the editors of the previous, current, and in-preparation editions of the DSM have been largely unresponsive to concerns expressed about these problems, please sign this petition as a statement that you take the pledge here below. It is not necessary to use the DSM in most places, because the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) can be used instead, and because both the ICD and DSM are available for free online.* (see psychdiagnosis.net and MindFreedomInternational.org for examples and relevant research)

Pledge:
"I will not purchase any form of any edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)."

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*Note added on December 4, 2011, in response to some who expressed concern about why in this petition we even mention using the DSM or ICD at all, since even the ICD includes many psychiatric diagnoses. A quarter of a century of activism via petitions and critiques has failed to stop the psychiatric diagnosis juggernaut, and the DSM in particular earns huge profits for the American Psychiatric Association, which is a lobby group. (The ICD is published by the World Health Organization.) We hope that a boycott of the DSM, by hitting the APA in the purse strings, might make them stop and think seriously at the very least about massively revising to remove some of the most objectionable problems, although the very idea that psychiatric diagnosis is scientific and more helpful than harmful, whichever classificatin system is used, is simply absurd. In the above petition, which was posted December 2, 2011, we mentioned the online versions of both the DSM and ICD not at all because we like either book but to let people know that if they are required to use labels, at least they can do so without feeding the coffers of the uncaring. The PLAN T Alliance also posted a second petition at http://www.change.org/petitions/everyone-who-cares-about-the-harm-done-by-psychiatric-diagnosis-endorse-the-call-for-congressional-hearings-about-psychiatric-diagnosis. That petition is about a call for Congressional hearings about psychiatric diagnosis, regardless of which manual is involved. We hope that people signing this petition will also sign that one. Congressional hearings would on a grand scale reveal the lack of science and the harm from any psychiatric label, so please consider signing both petitions and urging others to do so. The second petition can be signed by anyone at all, not just professionals.  

IMPORTANT: The PLAN T Alliance is not connected in any way with Scientology or its CCHR.

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