DSM-V

The image above shows how the number of mental disorders have expanded with each new publication of the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders. This has led some psychiatrists to claim that ordinary states of mind, feelings, and some behaviours have become pathologised.

A new version of the DSM is being produced right now and many psychiatrists and psychologists are concerned that 'normal' states of mind and some 'normal' behaviours will be classified as disordered or abnormal and require treatment:

"Three changes, in particular, could lead to an enormous pathologization of non-disordered conditions. The first is the suggested revision of the criteria for Major Depressive Episode to remove the bereavement exclusion from this diagnosis. At present, the criteria for major depression require five or more out of nine symptoms including sadness or lack of interest or pleasure that least for at least two weeks. However, the criteria exclude people who experience these symptoms in response to bereavement: “The symptoms are not better accounted for by Bereavement” That is, people who develop enough symptoms to meet the criteria after the death of an intimate are nevertheless not defined as disordered but instead as suffering from a natural, nondisordered response to loss".

Link to DSM-V: Getting Closer to Pathologising everyone

Link to DSM-IV-TR

Link to DSM-V Development