Values and Psychiatric Diagnosis

As one who has little formal training in philosophy, but who has been practicing philosophy without a license (as do, surely, many respected colleagues who resort to the DSM codes primarily for reimbursement), I celebrate the birth of this book and wish it well. People in the field are all amateur philosophers, and they can use some professional help. The book would serve for a semester course in the last year of college and in graduate school. Every psychiatric residency and clinical psychology program should devote at least an annual grand rounds or case conference to this work. It should be required reading for anyone who has anything to do with the current use and the future development of the DSM. * PsycCRITIQUES, Vol 50, No 15 *
This is a well written and rigorous examination of values and their effects on psychiatric diagnosis. It is complex and not intended for the casual reader. The author does an excellent job of explaining the philosophical language that he applies throughout the book and breaking down societal values into their core elements. His insights are provocative and compelling. He demonstrates the richness that can be psychiatry and suggests methods of improving both clinical practice and theory in light of the value judgements that are a part of classifying mental illness. * Doody's Journal *
John Sadler mounts a persuasive argument that values, usually seen as subjective (and therefore fallable), are impossible to separate from those concepts, even "facts", we consider objective . . . The bulk of his discussion concerns the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the ontological assumptions - as Sadler puts it, "assumptions about the way things are" - that underlie its efforts. He offers us what he calls "an alternative path", to better enable diagnosticians in understanding their own cultural assumptions and biases. This is no abstract exercise, especially now, when, as Sadler notes, "the term 'values' is often used to shore up all sorts of political agendas, social reform intentions, and voter turnout". It's a bracing approach, challenging to all struggling to reconcile the needs of clinical practice with the unsettling fear that categorisations of any sort merely serve the collective interest. * The Lancet *