Gemma Spake

Yes, there's been slight bumps, but actually still prevalence rates, when you view them in that way, are remaining pretty consistent with only slight variations.

Okay, when we return, I want to talk about another way that diagnoses or rates of diagnosis for certain conditions are seemingly increasing because of how the DSM is changing, because of how we categorize certain conditions is changing.

We're also going to talk about the role of big pharma and corporations.

Stay with us.

I felt like I got hit by a truck.

I thought, how could this happen to me?

To understand why everybody has a diagnosis or it feels that way these days, we also need to understand that diagnostic systems are not written in stone.

They are revised classifications.

They are shaped by evidence.

cultural debates, cultural norms, clinical needs, and often politics, which I don't think I see a lot of people talking about, but politics and cultural context changes how we see certain conditions.

For example, PTSD, that only became a diagnosable condition in the, I think, 1980s after the Vietnam War because all these veterans came home and were lobbying for this condition to be included.

um the removal of like homosexuality as a mental condition only happened in 1973 right our clinical guidelines for and i hate to say this but like for what is an impairment or not an impairment mentally

is constantly being revised to actually match what is accurate.

Like PTSD should always have been in the DSM.

Homosexuality should never have been in the DSM, right?

And so we are naturally going to see changes in this document as our understanding of people and our understanding of human psychology changes.

changes.

So the DSM is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

I should have said that originally, but it's used for every single diagnosis worldwide by every single mental health professional.

And the reason we are seeing increases is also because of how the criteria for certain conditions has changed in the DSM.