Debating psychiatry: a critical review of some recent discussions

Abstract

This paper reviews the principal critiques and reactions stated regarding the launching of DSM-5 up to the present days in Anglo-Saxon’s mental health domain. The arguments are gathered as follows: current diagnoses systems; validity of psychiatric diagnoses; limits of the efficacy of psychiatric treatments (especially medications and conflict of interests); the image of psychiatry in user’s networks. In the end controversies get polarized between medicalization of ordinary life and antipsychiatry. However, if acknowledged impasses and benevolent distrust are tolerated, it is possible to make a clinical use of the critiques and reactions.