A new study, published in Psychiatry Research, has concluded that psychiatric diagnoses are scientifically worthless as tools to identify discrete mental health disorders.

Lead researcher Dr Kate Allsopp, University of Liverpool, said: “Although diagnostic labels create the illusion of an explanation they are scientifically meaningless and can create stigma and prejudice. I hope these findings will encourage mental health professionals to think beyond diagnoses and consider other explanations of mental distress, such as trauma and other adverse life experiences.”

It is no secret to anybody outside the psychiatric profession, and to many within it, that the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) in all its iterations is a medical version of Joe Miller’s Joke Book. You can open it to any random page and find fabulous stuff masquerading as medical diagnoses.

The psychiatric profession lacking any firm scientific foundation is prone to fashion. Right now they’re flirting with transgenderism. It used to be a disorder but has been demoted to a dysphoria.

Dr. Allan M. Josephson,  the former chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Louisville, claims the university demoted and effectively fired him for opposing transgender “treatment” for children. Josephson says the university punished him for his speech at the Heritage Foundation. He is suing the university in federal court. “The lawsuit claims these actions violated the professor’s First Amendment right to free speech, constituted viewpoint discrimination, imposed an unconstitutional condition for his employment, and violated his rights to due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.” [Quotation from link above.]

There’s a connection between aggressive treatment of “gender dysphoria” in children and opera. Until the end of the 18th century, a lot of music was written for castrati – ie, males castrated before puberty. They were said to have the range of sopranos and mezzos combined with the power of male singers. Well, if the trend above continues, we may find out what the castrati sounded like. Who would have thought this possible just a wink ago?

No physician with any experience denies that serious mental disorders exist and that they can have devastating consequences. Our problem is that our understanding of them on a scientific basis is where our knowledge of kidney function and disease was before the time of Richard Bright (1789-1858). The brain is a far more complicated organ than the kidney. We may never understand its intricacies as well as those of the kidney or heart. Nevertheless, the medical profession must do the best it can with the limited knowledge now available of how our psyche works. We needn’t apologize for our ignorance, but a little humility about it is definitely warranted.

Currently, there are locales where transgender “treatment” is being applied to children, sometimes without their parent’s consent, that have irreversible effects that will affect these children throughout their lives. There is no good scientific evidence that this “treatment” is warranted. This is an area where doctors should tread very lightly.

Also consider, that the same people who protest therapy designed to convert homosexuals to heterosexuals as not scientifically based seem to be in favor of treatment aimed at changing boys into girls or vice versa. Do not look for logical thinking in much of our public discourse.