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How Shyness Became an Illness and Other Cautionary Tales about the DSM

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Abstract

When the American Psychiatric Association decided in 1980 to update its official list of mental disorders, it cited the existence of more than eighty new ones, many of them a source of ongoing controversy (American Psychatric Association: 1980).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    From which parts ofthis essay have been adapted.

  2. 2.

    Isaac Marks, interviewwith Christopher Lane (November 1, 2005), quoted in Lane 2007: 105. See also David Healy's remarks on the same page.

  3. 3.

    DSM-IV(300.23) (1994), 416: “Performance anxiety, stage fright, and shyness in social situations that involve unfamiliar people are common and should not be diagnosed as Social Phobia unless the amciety or avoidance leads to clinically significant impairment or markcd distress.”

  4. 4.

    Marks, interview by Lane, quotcd in Lane 2007.

  5. 5.

    Spitzer, interview by Mitchell Wilson, quotcd in Wilson 1993.

  6. 6.

    John Frosch to Robert Spitzer, quotcd in Lane 2007.

  7. 7.

    Klein to Spitzer, quoted in Lane 2007.

  8. 8.

    Theodorc Millon, quoted in Alix Spiegel 2005.

  9. 9.

    Michael L. Liebowitz to Spitzer, quotcd in Lane 2007.

  10. 10.

    “Socia1 Phobia,” DSM.IIIR, 241.

  11. 11.

    Donald Klein to Spitzer, quoted in Lane 2007.

  12. 12.

    DSM.1V (300.23) (1994), 416, quotod above.

  13. 13.

    DSM-1V, 413.

  14. 14.

    Hawkins, “Paxil Is Forever,” D.pag.

  15. 15.

    KrzysztofKidlowili (dir.). TroiJ couleurs: Rouge (1994).

  16. 16.

    Hawlcins. “Paxil Is Forever,” n.pag.

  17. 17.

    Turner et al. determined that a publication bias skewing to positive reporting of SSRI antidepressants was owing less to the efficacy of the drugs themselves than to the non-publication of clinical trials showing unfavorable results and the recasting of ambiguous, mixed results as mildly positive in publication.

  18. 18.

    DSM-lI (318: No mental disorder) (1968), 52.

  19. 19.

    Block, “Editorial: Issues ror DSM-V: Internet Addiction,” 306.

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Lane, C. (2013). How Shyness Became an Illness and Other Cautionary Tales about the DSM . In: Dellwing, M., Harbusch, M. (eds) Krankheitskonstruktionen und Krankheitstreiberei. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-18784-6_3

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