Psychiatric categories fulfill the need for stable identities in our chaotic late capitalist society
Capitalism needs people who can quickly jump from one identity the next. The DSM is in a way a precursor to what Johan Peretti and other captains of the media industry would perfect online with Buzzfeed. It’s no coincidence that the DSM and the internet have found each other and combined into something much larger and scarier than either technology on their own. They’re both immensely powerful categorization machines. The book provides an ever-growing list of disorders to categorize patients under. Pharma companies exploit the fuzziness between mild mental disorder and being probably well to extend diagnosis and sell more drugs. Even many psychiatrists have begun to turn against the DSM as it categorizes more and more human behavior as disordered.
References
- Moskowitz, P. E. (2021). The BuzzFeedification of Mental Health. Mental Health: https://mentalhellth.xyz/p/the-buzzfeed-ification-of-mental.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Politics / Economics / Psychology / Psychiatry Status:☀️