Quotes from Allen Frances

E]ligibility for disability and other benefits should depend more on the person't actual level of functional impairment, less on whether or not he has a psychiatric diagnosis.

We need either to get the primary care doctors out of psychiatry or to teach them how to do it and give them sufficient time to do it properly.

Diagnostic inflation has led to an explosive growth in the use of psychotropic drugs; this then produced huge profits that have given the pharmaceutical industry the means and the motive to blow up the diagnostic bubble into an ever-expanding balloon.

the drug companies had to get an indication for bipolar disorder and then they had to advertise a conception of bipolar disorder so broad as to be unrecognizable. Antipsychotics were soon being prescribed promiscuously, even by primary care physicians, to patients with garden-variety anxiety, sleeplessness, and irritability.

Much of the increased prevalence of ADHD results from the "false positive" misidentification of kids who would be better off never receiving a diagnosis. Drug company marketing pressure often leads to unnecessary treatment with medications that can cause the harmful side effects of insomnia, loss of appetite, irritability, heart rhythm problems, and a variety of psychiatric symptoms.

CBD has become the most inflated bubble in all of psychiatric diagnosis, with a remarkable fortyfold inflation in just one decade. CBD satisfied three essential preconditions for excessive popularity: a pressing need, influential prophets, and an engaging story.

DSM-IV unwittingly contributed to three new false epidemics in psychiatry—the overdiagnosis of attention deficit, autism, and adult bipolar disorder.

Disease mongering cannot occur in a vacuum—it requires that the drug companies engage the active collaboration of the doctors who write the prescriptions, the patients who ask for them, the researchers who invent the new mental disorders, the consumer groups that advocate for more treatment, and the media and Internet that spread the word.

It is comforting to see President Donald Trump as a crazy man, a one -off, an exception- not a reflection on us or on our democracy. But in ways I never anticipated, his rise was absolutely predictable and a mirror on our soul.

The technical skills of medicine are becoming increasingly routine and may soon be done better by computer programs - but the shamanic skills of medicine will always be important to patients and to society.

The status quo is not a likely option- we will improve our world or we will destroy it

There's a societal push for conformity in all rways," he said. "There's less tolerance of difference. And so maybe for some people having a label is better. It can confer a sense of hope and direction.

Elusive reality does not discourage Umpire Two. We don't have to fully perceive or understand the underlying nature of our world to negotiate it well. Our senses and reasoning powers evolved as they did because they work just fine in the everyday, nonphilosophical business of survival. Mental constructs of reality are imperfect, but indispensable, ways to organize the otherwise bewildering phenomena of the world.

I sometimes joke that the only way to define mental disorder is "that which clinicians treat; researchers research; educators teach; and insurance companies pay for.

It is good to know and use the DSM definitions, but not to reify or worship them.31,32

Because of diagnostic inflation, an excessive proportion of people have come to rely on antidepressants, antipsychotics, antiaxiety agents, sleeping pills, and pain meds.

The power to label is the power to destroy.

Loose diagnosis is causing a national drug overdose of medication. Six percent of our people are addicted to prescription drugs, and there are now more emergency room visits and deaths due to legal prescription drugs than to illegal street drugs.6

W]ay too much treatment is given to the normal worried well who are harmed by it; far too little help is available for those who are really ill and desperately need it. Two thirds of people with severe depression don't get treated for it, and many suffering with schizophrenia wind up in prisons. The writing is on the wall.

Mental disorders should be diagnosed only when the presentation is clear-cut, severe, and clearly not going away on its own. The best way to deal with the everyday problems of living is to solve them directly or to wait them out, not to medicalize them with a psychiatric diagnosis or treat them with a pill.

Overcoming problems on your own normalizes the situation, teaches new skills, and brings you closer to the people who were helpful. Taking a pill labels you as different and sick, even if you really aren't. Medication is essential when needed to reestablish homeostasis for those who are suffering from real psychiatric disorder. Medication interferes with homeostasis for those who are suffering from the problems of everyday life.

The great unspoken paradox of the arduous process of psychoanalysis is that the best patients are the ones who never really needed it in the first place. Abnormal

W]e have far too much faith in pills, far too little trust in resilience, time, and homeostasis.

Taking a pill is passive. In contrast, psychotherapy puts the patient in charge by instilling new coping skills and attitudes toward life.