Providing historical and sociological analyses, the contributors demonstrate bias in diagnoses, stemming from sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia/heterosexism, and classism. They argue that awareness of bias is important to any "helping" profession involved with diagnosis and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, mental retardation, parental alienation syndrome, learning disabilities, sexual dysfunction, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, false memory syndrome, agoraphobia, eating disorders, histrionic personality, ... Read moreand menstrual distress. Summing Up: Recommended.
CHOICE
Taken as a whole these collected essays offer an interesting starting point from which to begin a more rigorous inquiry into the problem and ultimately encourage action at both the individual and the professional level. The authors of this text should be congratulated on their worthy attempt to meet this challenge.
PsycCRITIQUES
The collection is powerful, unique, comprehensive, cogent, sane, balanced, and extremely important. It covers almost every major form of bias and oppression, as well as the profound biases embedded in many individual diagnostic labels. This is a must-read for all mental health professionals and their clients.
Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D., emerita professor of psychology and women studies at the College of Staten Island (CUNY), author of 12 books, including Women an This is an extraordinarily important book. It should be required reading for all mental health professionals and especially for all teaching programs. Further, it could serve as an excellent illustration of the social construction of what comes to be called science. It is that and also much more than an intellectual exercise because these issues affect profoundly the fate of so many people.
Jean Baker Miller, M.D., director of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute and author of Toward a New Psychology of Women By unraveling the roles of ideology, socially-constructed norms, and commercial interests in psychiatric diagnosis, this valuable book of original essays helps to explain the meteoric rise in psychotropic drug use and the new social trend of psychopharmaphilia. A book of accessible and stimulating original essays that unravels the complex web of transscientific factors and bias that enter into psychiatric diagnosis.
Sheldon Krimsky, Tufts University
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