This week’s Time Essay I’m O.K. You’re O.K. We’re Not O.K. mocks the American Psychiatric Association for proposing that a category called “Relational Disorders” be added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the profession’s official guide for defining emotional and mental illnesses. The story was first reported in the Washington Post a week or so ago: Doctors Consider Diagnosis for ‘Ill’ Relationships.
It seems a goofball way to try to shoehorn family therapy and marriage therapy into the APA’s mental disorder box so that insurance companies will pay the freight. I’m all for the insurance coverage and de-medicalizing the DSM, but not at the price of saying to the public that relationship problems are brain dysfunctions.