Just finished reading about another new “disorder” that, according to a recent study, up to 16 million Americans (7.3 percent of the population) may have: Intermittent Explosive Disorder.

I’m going to add this to a list of other bogus psychiatric diagnosis: (All found in the DSM-IV)

• Sibling Rivalry Disorder
• Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder
• Mathematics Disorder
• Caffeine Related Disorder
• Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD)

The findings, released in the Archives of General Psychiatry, “show the disorder is much more common than previously thought”, said lead author Ronald Kessler, a health care policy professor at Harvard Medical School.

Do you get impulsively aggressive? Then you too may have a “disease” that needs to be treated with drugs.

Apparently, the $20 billion per year pharmaceutical companies make selling these antidepressants (the treatment for Intermittent Explosive Disorder) is just not enough.

I suspect most would be shocked to know that the psychiatrists who define the diseases for the bible of psychiatry- the DSM IV- are funded and on the payroll of pharmaceutical companies. For those who doubt, an absolutely amazing statistic was recently revealed by the Washington Post in April 2006:

• Of the 170 experts who contributed to the book that defines psychiatric diseases (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders- the DSM), more than half had financial ties to the drug companies that sell medications for those illnesses

“I don’t think the public is aware of how egregious the financial ties are”, said Lisa Cosgrove, who published her findings in the journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.

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