“Editors of previous volumes have joined with skeptics from within the profession to protest the very idea of the DSM, saying that its “diseases” bear no relation to any particular neuropathology, and instead represent (at best), handy categories to put on insurance forms, and (at worst), a bonanza for the pharma industry, who get to produce pills that “cure” any disease that’s defined in the DSM. Greenberg captures the mental health field at the cusp of an enormous transformation driven by better genomics, better imaging, and hence a better understanding of what connections various symptoms have to one another, to physical problems, to genetics, and to health. The DSM has always been controversial — it’s the document that turned homosexuality into a mental illness for years — but never moreso than now.”

DSM wars: the battle to define mental illness – Boing Boing.