FDA drug-approval rules forced psychiatry into standardized diagnoses

Evidence

Its standards of authorization were very strict. In particular, the medication had to be submitted for approval and had to show itself to be visibly effective. Statistical tools of evaluation were required: double blind studies comparing the medication to other products already in use (products of choice) as well as to a placebo were made compulsory. For the studies to be demonstrably effective, and acceptable to all the players in the system, categories of depression and of homogeneous depressive populations were essential. — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self, 687

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A regulatory mechanism — market approval — is shown to have reshaped the very ontology of mental illness: the FDA’s evidentiary demands forced uniform diagnostic categories into being.
• XREF: Parallels how grading standards / commercial verification shaped the diamond trade’s extralegal categories in the trusted-economies work. — connects to: The DSM-III was designed as an expert system to bypass clinician judgment — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing…, 701; Federal funding and medicalized psychoanalysis shaped American psychiatry’s distinct path — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing…, 682; Depression diagnosis shifted from causes to observable subtypes around 1975 — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing…, 627 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Federal funding and medicalized psychoanalysis shaped American psychiatry’s distinct path #corroborates (0.82) — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self, 682
• Depression diagnosis shifted from causes to observable subtypes around 1975 #expands (0.80) — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self, 627
• The new psychotropics defeated existing psychiatric vocabulary #corroborates (0.78) — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self, 398