Worse, the psychiatrists are busy broadening definitions and lowering thresholds so that much of the other half will be listed as disordered too. The clearest current example is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a label now being applied to many perfectly healthy small boys who bother school officials by misbehaving in class. ADHD cases have nearly doubled in five years. Currently, five of nine criteria may have to be met before a disorder is diagnosed. They, too, include light versions of serious disorders.
New disorders do for psychiatrists what the litigation boom did for lawyers.
Pharmaceutical companies have a stake in this too. Pfizer Inc. In a recent study of a thousand patients, Prime-MD turned up 287 people with identifiable problems. Another way of saying this is that a screening test funded by a drug company doubled the number of people with psychiatric difficulties, many of whom will therefore be needing regular pills. Psychiatrists are free to declare as many people disordered as they wish. But the effort and the concepts behind this are seeping deep into the culture, reinforcing the victim industry and teaching us to look for psychiatric answers to every social and personal problem.