> Clinical psychiatry and psychology are areas of neuroscience these days ... Quote false. To a greater degree than in the past, psychiatry and psychology are

> Clinical psychiatry and psychology are areas of neuroscience these days ... Quote false. To a greater degree than in the past, psychiatry and psychology are moving away from science, not toward it. The situation has gotten so extreme and frankly embarrassing for those who want to see more science in mental health, that the director of the NIMH has decided to drop support for the new DSM (DSM-5), arguing that the mentally ill "deserve better": http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia... Quote: " While DSM has been described as a “Bible” for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” – each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity." There's more. The editor of the previous DSM, DSM-IV, Allen Frances, watched the process that led to DSM-5 with increasing amazement and dismay. He now strongly recommends that professionals avoid the DSM entirely -- he recommends that people not teach it or use it: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/psychiatry-allen-frances-saving-normal-dsm-5-controversy http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/psychiatry-allen... How important is this? The DSM is to psychiatry and psychology what the Standard Model is to physics -- to a large extent it defines the field and it is the leading reference for theory and practice. And it has gotten so embarrassing that the most influential psychiatrist in the country (the NIMH director) is abandoning it, choosing to move in a more scientific direction. > ... so I don't quite understand the "historic meltdown" point, any references on that? See above. And read what others are saying: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/03/01/100301crat_atlarge_menand http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/03/01/100... Quote: "[Psychiatrist and writer] Greenberg is repeating a common criticism of contemporary psychiatry, which is that the profession is creating ever more expansive criteria for mental illness that end up labelling as sick people who are just different—a phenomenon that has consequences for the insurance system, the justice system, the administration of social welfare, and the cost of health care." Believe me when I tell you, I could produce scores of similar criticisms from within the field, by people who are mental health professionals but who are incensed by what's happening to the field. I have to say that anyone in the field of mental health who doesn't see fundamental changes coming, hasn't been keeping up with current events.