debatable disgnoses...the new DSM

While I'm all for quantitative measuring methods, I too have serious concerns about the DSM, and while it is hard to generalize, would think that there can be too much 'medicalization' of mental problems.The dangers are (a) that some kind of amazing level of balanced happiness is then considered both normal and achievable and that (b) those who can't achieve it are then considered 'sick', which generally implies external remedies are necessary. This is I think detrimental to both the 'well' and the truly 'sick'.
But, it is a complicated area, since of course as a materialist I am fully convinced that all behaviours originate from the chemical/neuronal status of the brain, and from this perspective, any mood can be changed. The problem is to manually force a change is to intervene in an amazingly complex and normally efficiently self-regulating system, and while sometimes the situation merits this, until the techniques are more developed (and their mechanisms properly understood) then I think it is not appropriate unless the person involved has serious problems coping with daily life. Life shouldn't be hell,but there's no reason to think it should be all rosy either...

"Hundreds of thousands of people will be labelled mentally ill because of behaviour most people would consider normal, if a new edition of what has been termed the psychiatrists' diagnostic bible goes ahead, experts are warning."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/09/us-mental-health-manual

• Psychiatrists and psychologists in the UK are speaking out against the publishing of DSM-5, an updated version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual that categorises every type of mental disorder, including some that the psychologists say should not exist. 
• Under the DSM-4, last revised 12 years ago, children who argue and refuse to obey parents can be classified as having oppositional defiant disorder."
•  "Til Wykes, professor of clinical psychology at Kings College London, said: "The proposals in DSM-5 are likely to shrink the pool of normality to a puddle with more and more people being given a diagnosis of mental illness." "