Saving Normal Book Review

In Saving Normal, Frances, who is the former chairman of the task force that organized the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, warns readers that the DSM-5, offers an irresponsible set of proposals that will turn everyday stressors into mental illnesses. Outlining faddish syndromes of the past, Frances argues that whenever we freely label a set of human behaviors as a "disease," we lost a bit of our diversity and adjustability. Frances acknowledges that we all have psychiatric symptoms from time to time, but this doesn't mean we are all on the verge of a mental illness.
The author’s point is to make the reader aware of diagnosis inflation, the over-medicating that is taking place today, and doctors' inability
or unwillingness to allow, when appropriate, self-healing without medications.
Frances criticizes the misuse of the DSM-5 as well as the pharmaceutical industry that use the manual to pathologize normal behavior for its own financial gain. Although medical professionals are not off the hook as he criticizes their involvement in the broken system, he stopped short of offering more than a handful of solutions mostly aimed at the pharmaceutical companies to fix the problem.
In fact, his fixation on pharmaceutical companies is at times so repetitive that it had the opposite effect I’m sure he was trying to have, and instead bothered me. It would have been to the author’s benefit to have spread the responsibility of diagnosis inflation. He only touched on other parties’ participation, like how in order to receive assistance and treatment reimbursement, insurance companies and government agencies require a diagnosis, despite whether it is inappropriate. He fails to lambaste the trusted physicians who write the prescriptions, and make diagnoses perhaps prematurely when the client is likely to be most distressed. Lastly, Frances displayed a tendency to ramble and be tangential. For example, I didn’t understand why a book about the DSM-5 needed a history of cultural beliefs about the causes of mental illnesses.
Opening the publishing of the DSM to change for change's sake has made the process too vulnerable to diagnosis inflation.
On page 29 for example, he discusses “disease mongering.” This opened my eyes to all the many players involved in diagnosis inflation. I have become more critical of researchers, the media, and advocacy groups since reading Saving Normal. I have a better understanding now of how money is allocated and why it would be to a researcher’s advantage to inflate their specific disease population (because they receive greater research dollars). And a large, well–financed “awareness” campaign can create disease where none existed before. Before reading this book, I was suspicious of drug representatives, but now my suspicion has spread to the doctors as well who collaborate with these representatives to receive incentives to write the prescriptions. I agree with the author in his suggestion of banning marketing straight to the consumer. Like I previously wrote, his suggestions for how to go about changing the current environment are limited. My professional growth from reading Saving Normal is also limited if one specifically means new information obtained. But the enhanced critical perspective I take away I will not soon
lose.