Calling People Names: The Absence of Science Behind Psychiatric Diagnosis, and Ways To Help Without Those Labels

Paula Caplan, Ph.D. and Steven Stone

Psychiatric diagnostic categories are widely assumed to be (1) scientifically-based, (2) helpful, and (3) not harmful, but all of those assumptions are false. A number of alternatives to psychiatric labeling (not other kinds of labeling systems) will be discussed, and ways to try to minimize harm to labeled people from the consequences of those diagnoses will be discussed, with special -- but not exclusive--emphasis on those who have been traumatized through exposure to various kinds of individual violence and to war.