The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the manual that provides a symptom list for diagnosing a catalogue of mental illnesses. While the DSM purports to be scientific, and the APA seeks to inspire confidence in society that a psychiatric diagnosis is just as reliable as in any other branch of medicine, a careful examination reveals deep flaws in the scientific claims of the DSM.
The purpose of the embedded video is to evaluate the DSM in the light of biblical truth. The Bible calls upon believers to examine all things, for the days are evil and the deception is great. Every teaching is to be tested—believers must hold fast to that which is good and reject that which is evil (1 Thessalonians 5. 21-22). We need to distinguish between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error (1 John 4.6).
Is the DSM scientific?
The Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry makes this statement: ‘Psychiatric diagnostic manuals such as the DSM and ICD (chapter5) are not works of objective science, but rather works of culture since they have largely been developed through clinical consensus and voting. Their validity and clinical utility is therefore highly questionable, yet their influence has contributed to an expansive medicalisation of human experience (my italics).’[i]
[i] http://cepuk.org/unrecognised-facts/diagnostic-system-lacks-validity/
