The pathologising, or medicalised, model of mental health conceptualises so called ‘mental illnesses’ as conditions like physical and medical diseases. Yet, this comparison lacks sound and conclusive scientific and empirical support. The claim that ‘mental disorders’ are like physical illnesses has been historically promoted to align (amongst other things) psychiatry more closely with the biomedical sciences, especially during periods when its credibility within the broader medical community was waning (Whitaker, 2010; Moncrieff, 2008).
Psychiatry claims that it adheres to evidence based scientific standards, yet the very criteria it uses to define ‘mental illness’ do not withstand the rigour typically expected of scientific standards. For instance, while biological markers are a cornerstone of diagnosing physical illnesses, there are no definitive biological tests for most ‘mental disorders’, including depression and schizophrenia (Insel, 2013; APA, 2013). As Thomas Insel, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), stated, ‘The weakness is its lack of validity’ in reference to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (Insel, 2013).
When no objective, measurable distinction between so called mental normalcy and abnormality can be identified, the medical model’s philosophical and scientific foundation is called into question. This ideology, which suggests that negative affective states like persistent sadness or despair are pathological by default, relies heavily on subjective clinical interpretation rather than objective scientific data.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA), through the DSM-5, attempts to define these boundaries. But the criteria remain controversial, as they are often constructed through committee discussions and voting rather than derived from empirical, reproducible findings. As Dr. Allen Frances, chair of the DSM-4 Task Force, warned, “There is no definition of a mental disorder. It’s bullshit. I mean, you just can’t define it” (Greenberg, 2013).
In order to sustain the claim that normal and deep human struggles constitutes a disorder, the APA must distinguish between normal emotional responses and pathological conditions. As stated, this distinction is not consistently underpinned by robust biological or psychometric evidence. It is argued that this ambiguity leaves psychiatry vulnerable to pathologising natural human experiences, turning grief, stress, and sadness into medical diagnoses – and creating much harm in society (Horwitz & Wakefield, 2007).
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders outlines three central criteria used to define depression, which the American Psychiatric Association (APA) claims differentiate typical human experience from psychiatric disorder. These three benchmarks- severity, duration, and functional impairment- serve as the foundation upon which the APA constructs its diagnostic framework and reinforces its belief in the model of ‘mental illness’.
According to the DSM-5, in the context of major depressive disorder:
‘Periods of sadness are inherent aspects of the human experience. These periods should not be diagnosed as a major depressive episode unless criteria are met for [1] severity, [2] duration [a two-week period for major depression], and [3] clinically significant distress or impairment. The diagnosis ‘other specified depressive disorder’ may be appropriate for presentations of depressed mood with clinically significant impairment that do not meet criteria for duration or severity.’ (APA, 2013)
This statement affirms that sadness, as a universal emotional experience, should not automatically be medicalised and pathologised. Nonetheless, the APA has collectively agreed upon these three criteria in an effort to draw a line between what is regarded as normal human emotion and what constitutes ‘mental illnesses.
Critical questions remain: Are these criteria based on objective, reproducible measurements? Do they consistently and reliably distinguish between normal psychological variation and pathology? While the APA claims scientific legitimacy, the extent to which its standards fulfil the requirements of empirical science continues to be debated by scholars and clinicians alike (Frances, 2013; Horwitz & Wakefield, 2007).
The Severity Criterion
The first diagnostic criterion emphasised for depressive disorders is the clinician's assessment of the severity of an individual's emotional distress. This judgment is inherently subjective: there is no objective or quantifiable standard by which the depth of sorrow can be measured. As a result, assessments of severity rely heavily on personal interpretation, clinical intuition, and contextual inference rather than on empirical, standardised and scientific measurement.
This approach assumes that ‘normal sadness’ is neither deeply distressing nor significantly impairing. Yet such an assumption is extremely wrong and problematic. Sorrow, by its very nature, is often accompanied by considerable distress and functional impairment. Deep emotional pain resulting from experiences such as the loss of a loved one, family breakdown, job loss, or unfulfilled relationships and purposeless longing can persist for weeks, months years-or even a lifetime. These forms of suffering, while part of ordinary human existence, can be just as emotionally debilitating as what is labelled ‘disordered’ within the psychiatric framework. Thus, the idea that only pathological sorrow is severe, while all normal sadness is supposedly mild and non-impairing, lacks psychological realism.
In the DSM-5, the APA specifies that a diagnosis of major depressive disorder requires the presence of five out of nine possible symptoms to satisfy the severity threshold. But this numerical threshold is itself subjective, as it neither accounts for the lived experience of the individual nor offers a reliable method for distinguishing between natural human sorrow and clinical pathology. Owing to the fact that much of the treatments like drugs cause more harm and damage to the individual. This point will be articulated in another article.
The APA concedes the fundamental flaw of its own severity criterion in the following statement:
‘In the absence of clear biological markers or clinically useful measurements of severity for many mental disorders, it has not been possible to completely separate normal and pathological symptom expressions contained in the diagnostic criteria.’ (APA, 2013)
This admission undermines the objectivity of the severity standard. Without measurable biological markers or universally valid criteria, the attempt to draw a firm boundary between normal emotional variation and psychiatric abnormality becomes scientifically indefensible and faulty. Depression, as currently defined, is a syndrome based on reported experiences- what the APA calls ‘pathological symptom expressions’- that are indistinguishable from normal suffering in any empirical or biological sense.
The severity criterion does not offer a reliable or objective foundation for psychiatric diagnosis. In its place, it reflects a broader problem within the diagnostic framework of the DSM-5: the conflation of subjective emotional experiences with presumed biological disease states, absent empirical validation.
The Time Criterion
The second diagnostic benchmark employed by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to differentiate between so called normal sadness and clinical depression is the duration of symptoms. Usually referred to as the time criterion, this standard defines a minimum time frame during which emotional distress must persist in order to qualify as a psychiatric disorder.
Within the DSM-5's framework for major depressive disorder, for instance, the relevant emotional state- characterised by persistent sorrow and hopelessness- must be experienced:
‘Most of the day, nearly every day for at least two weeks.’ (APA, 2013)
This two-week duration is not based on a biological marker or objective threshold, but rather on consensus among the members of the DSM-5 task force. And therefore, it represents a subjective and arbitrary temporal boundary, chosen by committee rather than determined by empirical evidence.
Psychological and spiritual problems often do not conform to predetermined timelines. Individuals may mourn the same kind of loss- such as a breakup, job loss, or bereavement- in vastly different ways and for varying durations. What is tolerable and transient for one person may remain deeply ‘wounding’ for another, even years later. Human beings do not grieve according to psychiatric schedules.
The Distress Criterion
The third diagnostic standard is known as the ‘clinically significant distress or impairment’ criterion- often referred to as the distress criterion or impairment. This benchmark appears consistently throughout the DSM-5 and is foundational to virtually every listed mental disorder. As the manual states explicitly:
‘Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress or disability.’ (APA, 2013)
In practical terms, this criterion means that if an individual experiences ongoing psychological distress, or is perceived by others (particularly clinicians) as significantly impaired in functioning, they may be labelled as ‘mentally ill’ (like a physical illness in medicine). Though this appears to offer a common-sense threshold, the criterion is fraught with subjectivity. As with the severity and duration criteria, the definition of what constitutes ‘clinically significant’ distress or impairment is left to the judgment of the diagnosing clinician, a fact widely acknowledged in psychiatric literature. This is why the term subjective distress is often used in professional discourse (Horwitz & Wakefield, 2007).
This tactic implies that persistent distress or emotional suffering- no matter how contextually understandable or existentially human- should be viewed as abnormal unless resolved swiftly and without external support. The result is a diagnostic model in which virtually anyone who seeks help is already positioned to meet the criteria for a ‘mental disorder’. In this agenda, seeking clinical support for distress may almost inevitably lead to receiving a diagnosis of psychiatric pathology.
This ambiguity and confusion highlighted above allows the APA and clinicians to reframe the human condition itself- grief, despair, fatigue, hopelessness- as signs of medical pathology. The line between emotional pain and ‘mental illness’ becomes indistinct, based not on biological or neurological evidence, but on subjective interpretations of behaviour and self report.
The distress criterion- like the severity and time criterions- is a subjective tool masquerading as clinical objectivity. It reflects a broader psychiatric tendency to conflate natural human responses with medical and physical illness, especially when those responses do not resolve quickly or independently. In this model, the threshold for being deemed disordered is not based on objective pathology but on how well one's distress conforms to socially constructed expectations of emotional resilience.
The Role of Clinical Judgment and Cultural Norms
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) openly concedes that the distinction between ‘normal’ sorrow and what is classified as a depressive disorder ultimately hinges upon ‘clinical judgment’, shaped by ‘cultural norms’ rather than objective medical criteria. The DSM-5 states:
‘Responses to a significant loss (e.g., bereavement, financial ruin, losses from a natural disaster, a serious medical illness or disability) may include the feelings of intense sadness, rumination about the loss, insomnia, poor appetite, and weight loss noted in Criterion A, which may resemble a depressive episode. Although such symptoms may be understandable or considered appropriate to the loss, the presence of a major depressive episode in addition to the normal response to a significant loss should also be carefully considered. This decision inevitably requires the exercise of clinical judgment based on the individual's history and the cultural norms for the expression of distress in the context of loss.’ (APA, 2013)
This admission is glaring. If symptoms characteristic of major depression (e.g., insomnia, weight loss, intense sadness) can occur as natural reactions to real-life events, then the question arises: On what objective grounds does psychiatry determine when such reactions cease being normal and become pathological?
The answer, as the APA admits, lies in ‘subjective interpretations’ informed by clinical experience and prevailing social values- not in biological and scientific tests or universally accepted medical standards as we do generally in medicine. In other words, the determination of whether someone is mentally ill rests not on measurable pathology but on a clinician's philosophical assumptions and personal frameworks.
This calls into question the scientific legitimacy of psychiatry’s core diagnostic model. Under the current paradigm, individuals who fail to demonstrate a self directed recovery within an expected timeframe, or who do not display a culturally sanctioned level of emotional resilience, risk being diagnosed with a ‘mental disorder’- essentially on the basis of noncompliance with psychological norms, not physiological evidence.
This biomedical narrative enables the perception that ‘depression’ is not just a condition but a ‘medical disorder’, something inherently broken within the individual. This is grounded not in empirical science but in the uncritical acceptance of philosophical ideologies. Importantly, recognising the ‘subjective basis of psychiatric diagnosis’ does not invalidate the real and profound struggles many individuals face. Rather, it reframes those struggles as part of the human condition- complex, painful, and deeply personal- not pathological.
As psychiatrist Dr. Allen Frances (Chair of the DSM-4 Task Force) observes:
‘Having a mental disorder label ‘marks’ someone in ways that can cause much secondary harm... A great deal of the trouble comes from a change in how you see yourself—the sense of being damaged goods, feeling not normal or worthy, not a full-fledged member of the group... Labels can also create self-fulfilling prophecies. If you are told you are sick, you feel and act sick, and others treat you as if you are sick... The sick role can be extremely destructive when it reduces expectations, truncates ambitions, and results in a loss of personal responsibility.’ (Frances, 2013)
When diagnostic labels are applied based on unproven and speculative standards, they often do more harm than good- undermining personal agency, reinforcing stigma, and discouraging genuine healing. It is also important to note that this pathologising and unscientific approach is not limited to the DSM; the ICD and other similar diagnostic models follow the same trajectories. The DSM, however, has been one of the most aggressively marketed tools in modern psychiatry. With the sixth edition imminent, it is likely to continue promoting its narrative under the guise of scientific progress.
A. Hasan
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5).
[https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm]
Insel, T. (2013). Transforming Diagnosis. National Institute of Mental Health. [https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-diagnosis]
Frances, A. (2013). Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life. HarperCollins.
Greenberg, G. (2013). The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry. Blue Rider Press.
Horwitz, A. V., & Wakefield, J. C. (2007). The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder. Oxford University Press.
Moncrieff, J. (2008). The Myth of the Chemical Cure: A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment. Palgrave Macmillan.
Whitaker, R. (2010). Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. Crown.
Psychiatry claims that it adheres to evidence based scientific standards, yet the very criteria it uses to define ‘mental illness’ do not withstand the rigour typically expected of scientific standards. For instance, while biological markers are a cornerstone of diagnosing physical illnesses, there are no definitive biological tests for most ‘mental disorders’, including depression and schizophrenia (Insel, 2013; APA, 2013). As Thomas Insel, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), stated, ‘The weakness is its lack of validity’ in reference to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (Insel, 2013).
When no objective, measurable distinction between so called mental normalcy and abnormality can be identified, the medical model’s philosophical and scientific foundation is called into question. This ideology, which suggests that negative affective states like persistent sadness or despair are pathological by default, relies heavily on subjective clinical interpretation rather than objective scientific data.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA), through the DSM-5, attempts to define these boundaries. But the criteria remain controversial, as they are often constructed through committee discussions and voting rather than derived from empirical, reproducible findings. As Dr. Allen Frances, chair of the DSM-4 Task Force, warned, “There is no definition of a mental disorder. It’s bullshit. I mean, you just can’t define it” (Greenberg, 2013).
In order to sustain the claim that normal and deep human struggles constitutes a disorder, the APA must distinguish between normal emotional responses and pathological conditions. As stated, this distinction is not consistently underpinned by robust biological or psychometric evidence. It is argued that this ambiguity leaves psychiatry vulnerable to pathologising natural human experiences, turning grief, stress, and sadness into medical diagnoses – and creating much harm in society (Horwitz & Wakefield, 2007).
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders outlines three central criteria used to define depression, which the American Psychiatric Association (APA) claims differentiate typical human experience from psychiatric disorder. These three benchmarks- severity, duration, and functional impairment- serve as the foundation upon which the APA constructs its diagnostic framework and reinforces its belief in the model of ‘mental illness’.
According to the DSM-5, in the context of major depressive disorder:
‘Periods of sadness are inherent aspects of the human experience. These periods should not be diagnosed as a major depressive episode unless criteria are met for [1] severity, [2] duration [a two-week period for major depression], and [3] clinically significant distress or impairment. The diagnosis ‘other specified depressive disorder’ may be appropriate for presentations of depressed mood with clinically significant impairment that do not meet criteria for duration or severity.’ (APA, 2013)
This statement affirms that sadness, as a universal emotional experience, should not automatically be medicalised and pathologised. Nonetheless, the APA has collectively agreed upon these three criteria in an effort to draw a line between what is regarded as normal human emotion and what constitutes ‘mental illnesses.
Critical questions remain: Are these criteria based on objective, reproducible measurements? Do they consistently and reliably distinguish between normal psychological variation and pathology? While the APA claims scientific legitimacy, the extent to which its standards fulfil the requirements of empirical science continues to be debated by scholars and clinicians alike (Frances, 2013; Horwitz & Wakefield, 2007).
The Severity Criterion
The first diagnostic criterion emphasised for depressive disorders is the clinician's assessment of the severity of an individual's emotional distress. This judgment is inherently subjective: there is no objective or quantifiable standard by which the depth of sorrow can be measured. As a result, assessments of severity rely heavily on personal interpretation, clinical intuition, and contextual inference rather than on empirical, standardised and scientific measurement.
This approach assumes that ‘normal sadness’ is neither deeply distressing nor significantly impairing. Yet such an assumption is extremely wrong and problematic. Sorrow, by its very nature, is often accompanied by considerable distress and functional impairment. Deep emotional pain resulting from experiences such as the loss of a loved one, family breakdown, job loss, or unfulfilled relationships and purposeless longing can persist for weeks, months years-or even a lifetime. These forms of suffering, while part of ordinary human existence, can be just as emotionally debilitating as what is labelled ‘disordered’ within the psychiatric framework. Thus, the idea that only pathological sorrow is severe, while all normal sadness is supposedly mild and non-impairing, lacks psychological realism.
In the DSM-5, the APA specifies that a diagnosis of major depressive disorder requires the presence of five out of nine possible symptoms to satisfy the severity threshold. But this numerical threshold is itself subjective, as it neither accounts for the lived experience of the individual nor offers a reliable method for distinguishing between natural human sorrow and clinical pathology. Owing to the fact that much of the treatments like drugs cause more harm and damage to the individual. This point will be articulated in another article.
The APA concedes the fundamental flaw of its own severity criterion in the following statement:
‘In the absence of clear biological markers or clinically useful measurements of severity for many mental disorders, it has not been possible to completely separate normal and pathological symptom expressions contained in the diagnostic criteria.’ (APA, 2013)
This admission undermines the objectivity of the severity standard. Without measurable biological markers or universally valid criteria, the attempt to draw a firm boundary between normal emotional variation and psychiatric abnormality becomes scientifically indefensible and faulty. Depression, as currently defined, is a syndrome based on reported experiences- what the APA calls ‘pathological symptom expressions’- that are indistinguishable from normal suffering in any empirical or biological sense.
The severity criterion does not offer a reliable or objective foundation for psychiatric diagnosis. In its place, it reflects a broader problem within the diagnostic framework of the DSM-5: the conflation of subjective emotional experiences with presumed biological disease states, absent empirical validation.
The Time Criterion
The second diagnostic benchmark employed by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to differentiate between so called normal sadness and clinical depression is the duration of symptoms. Usually referred to as the time criterion, this standard defines a minimum time frame during which emotional distress must persist in order to qualify as a psychiatric disorder.
Within the DSM-5's framework for major depressive disorder, for instance, the relevant emotional state- characterised by persistent sorrow and hopelessness- must be experienced:
‘Most of the day, nearly every day for at least two weeks.’ (APA, 2013)
This two-week duration is not based on a biological marker or objective threshold, but rather on consensus among the members of the DSM-5 task force. And therefore, it represents a subjective and arbitrary temporal boundary, chosen by committee rather than determined by empirical evidence.
Psychological and spiritual problems often do not conform to predetermined timelines. Individuals may mourn the same kind of loss- such as a breakup, job loss, or bereavement- in vastly different ways and for varying durations. What is tolerable and transient for one person may remain deeply ‘wounding’ for another, even years later. Human beings do not grieve according to psychiatric schedules.
The Distress Criterion
The third diagnostic standard is known as the ‘clinically significant distress or impairment’ criterion- often referred to as the distress criterion or impairment. This benchmark appears consistently throughout the DSM-5 and is foundational to virtually every listed mental disorder. As the manual states explicitly:
‘Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress or disability.’ (APA, 2013)
In practical terms, this criterion means that if an individual experiences ongoing psychological distress, or is perceived by others (particularly clinicians) as significantly impaired in functioning, they may be labelled as ‘mentally ill’ (like a physical illness in medicine). Though this appears to offer a common-sense threshold, the criterion is fraught with subjectivity. As with the severity and duration criteria, the definition of what constitutes ‘clinically significant’ distress or impairment is left to the judgment of the diagnosing clinician, a fact widely acknowledged in psychiatric literature. This is why the term subjective distress is often used in professional discourse (Horwitz & Wakefield, 2007).
This tactic implies that persistent distress or emotional suffering- no matter how contextually understandable or existentially human- should be viewed as abnormal unless resolved swiftly and without external support. The result is a diagnostic model in which virtually anyone who seeks help is already positioned to meet the criteria for a ‘mental disorder’. In this agenda, seeking clinical support for distress may almost inevitably lead to receiving a diagnosis of psychiatric pathology.
This ambiguity and confusion highlighted above allows the APA and clinicians to reframe the human condition itself- grief, despair, fatigue, hopelessness- as signs of medical pathology. The line between emotional pain and ‘mental illness’ becomes indistinct, based not on biological or neurological evidence, but on subjective interpretations of behaviour and self report.
The distress criterion- like the severity and time criterions- is a subjective tool masquerading as clinical objectivity. It reflects a broader psychiatric tendency to conflate natural human responses with medical and physical illness, especially when those responses do not resolve quickly or independently. In this model, the threshold for being deemed disordered is not based on objective pathology but on how well one's distress conforms to socially constructed expectations of emotional resilience.
The Role of Clinical Judgment and Cultural Norms
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) openly concedes that the distinction between ‘normal’ sorrow and what is classified as a depressive disorder ultimately hinges upon ‘clinical judgment’, shaped by ‘cultural norms’ rather than objective medical criteria. The DSM-5 states:
‘Responses to a significant loss (e.g., bereavement, financial ruin, losses from a natural disaster, a serious medical illness or disability) may include the feelings of intense sadness, rumination about the loss, insomnia, poor appetite, and weight loss noted in Criterion A, which may resemble a depressive episode. Although such symptoms may be understandable or considered appropriate to the loss, the presence of a major depressive episode in addition to the normal response to a significant loss should also be carefully considered. This decision inevitably requires the exercise of clinical judgment based on the individual's history and the cultural norms for the expression of distress in the context of loss.’ (APA, 2013)
This admission is glaring. If symptoms characteristic of major depression (e.g., insomnia, weight loss, intense sadness) can occur as natural reactions to real-life events, then the question arises: On what objective grounds does psychiatry determine when such reactions cease being normal and become pathological?
The answer, as the APA admits, lies in ‘subjective interpretations’ informed by clinical experience and prevailing social values- not in biological and scientific tests or universally accepted medical standards as we do generally in medicine. In other words, the determination of whether someone is mentally ill rests not on measurable pathology but on a clinician's philosophical assumptions and personal frameworks.
This calls into question the scientific legitimacy of psychiatry’s core diagnostic model. Under the current paradigm, individuals who fail to demonstrate a self directed recovery within an expected timeframe, or who do not display a culturally sanctioned level of emotional resilience, risk being diagnosed with a ‘mental disorder’- essentially on the basis of noncompliance with psychological norms, not physiological evidence.
This biomedical narrative enables the perception that ‘depression’ is not just a condition but a ‘medical disorder’, something inherently broken within the individual. This is grounded not in empirical science but in the uncritical acceptance of philosophical ideologies. Importantly, recognising the ‘subjective basis of psychiatric diagnosis’ does not invalidate the real and profound struggles many individuals face. Rather, it reframes those struggles as part of the human condition- complex, painful, and deeply personal- not pathological.
As psychiatrist Dr. Allen Frances (Chair of the DSM-4 Task Force) observes:
‘Having a mental disorder label ‘marks’ someone in ways that can cause much secondary harm... A great deal of the trouble comes from a change in how you see yourself—the sense of being damaged goods, feeling not normal or worthy, not a full-fledged member of the group... Labels can also create self-fulfilling prophecies. If you are told you are sick, you feel and act sick, and others treat you as if you are sick... The sick role can be extremely destructive when it reduces expectations, truncates ambitions, and results in a loss of personal responsibility.’ (Frances, 2013)
When diagnostic labels are applied based on unproven and speculative standards, they often do more harm than good- undermining personal agency, reinforcing stigma, and discouraging genuine healing. It is also important to note that this pathologising and unscientific approach is not limited to the DSM; the ICD and other similar diagnostic models follow the same trajectories. The DSM, however, has been one of the most aggressively marketed tools in modern psychiatry. With the sixth edition imminent, it is likely to continue promoting its narrative under the guise of scientific progress.
A. Hasan
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5).
[https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm]
Insel, T. (2013). Transforming Diagnosis. National Institute of Mental Health. [https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-diagnosis]
Frances, A. (2013). Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life. HarperCollins.
Greenberg, G. (2013). The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry. Blue Rider Press.
Horwitz, A. V., & Wakefield, J. C. (2007). The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder. Oxford University Press.
Moncrieff, J. (2008). The Myth of the Chemical Cure: A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment. Palgrave Macmillan.
Whitaker, R. (2010). Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. Crown.
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