Last September, in a post called „Anti-DSM Sentiment Rises in France,” I reported on the arguments and concerns of Stop DSM, a group based in Paris comprising (among others) prominent psychiatrists and psychoanalysts disturbed by the power of the American Psychiatric Association and its „one-track” focus on biological psychiatry.
Today, I am pleased to include the thoughts of Patrick Landman, a psychiatrist and associated researcher at the Université de Paris VII, who voices his own concerns about the likely effects of DSM-5, including on diagnostic and prescription rates across Europe. In excerpts from a longer essay he explains why the WHO should distance itself from DSM-5, how the manual has changed European psychiatry for the worse, and why practitioners around the world should boycott the edition. An impressive list of U.S. media reports on DSM-5 follows, itself indicating how closely Europeans are following the publication.