ADDSMD: A Breakthrough Discovery in Psychiatry

According to the American Psychiatric Association, a new mental disorder has been discovered that is proving to be the greatest breakthrough in psychiatry in decades. According to Dr. Ima Schrinquac, "ADDSMD is a recently discovered disorder, added in the latest update of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)" She went on to explain the ADDSMD stands for "Artificial Disorder Designed to Sell More Drugs".

Dr. Schrinquac tells us that "Recently a Toronto professor, Edward Shorter, claimed that in DMS-V, American psychiatry was 'defining ever-widening circles of the population as mentally ill with vague and undifferentiated diagnoses and treating them with powerful drugs'. We realized that he was pointing out the direction psychiatry needs to go, and so we decided to do an early revision of DSM. And in DSM-V1/2, we dropped several disorders and added the important discovery, ADDSMD."

The discovery of ADDSMD is itself an interesting story. As Dr. Schrinquac put it: "We had a plethora of disorders listed in DSM-V--ODD, ADD, ADHD, OCD, and on and on. As you can imagine, a long list like this can be very cumbersome to work with, so we began to examine whether some of these disorders might share a common trait of enough significance that we could combine them into a single disorder. And, in an example of one of the greatest recent victories in psychiatric and medical science, we discovered such a trait. Many of these disorders were invented when we discovered that there were drugs available from pharmaceutical companies that might be able to suppress a particular behavior, feeling or thought that could be considered undesirable. So there were three simple symptoms that most disorders shared: 1) the undesirability of the behavior, feeling or thought, whether to the individual experiencing them, to those surrounding her or him or to society as a whole; 2) the existence of a legal, prescription drug that could be used to treat the behavior, feeling or symptom, and 3) our decision to call it a disorder. We have thus been able to drop a number of listings from the manual, making DMS-V1/2 the most compact version of the manual ever. ADD, ADHD, ODD, OCD, and numerous other disorders are no longer listed, because we have realized that they are merely variations of ADDSMD. We hope to make DMS-VI even more compact as we examine whether perhaps some of those who have been diagnosed with mild depression and certain forms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder might not also actually be suffering from ADDSMD."

Dr. Schrinquac also explained that ADDSMD has made it possible to recognize a number of symptoms that psychiatrists had not previously noticed. "If a pharmaceutical company has developed a drug that can affect a behavior, feeling or thought, then that behavior feeling or thought is most likely a mental disorder that needs to be treated. Why else would a legitimate drug developed by these fine corporations affect it?" But Schrinquac warns against assuming that every behavior, feeling or thought that can be affected by any drug is a mental disease. "For example," she says, "the acceptance of consensus reality can be changed through the use of such drugs as LSD, mescaline or psilocybin. But these are illegal drugs. I would say the use of these drugs is itself a mental disorder. A mental disorder is a behavior, feeling or thought that can be affected by a legitimate drug, manufactured by a pharmaceutical company and approved by the FDA."

Dr. Schrinquac then explained some of the other benefits of this discovery: "I think a lot of us have realized that we live in a deeply diseased nation and world, but we haven't known the nature of that disease. Now we know. Undrugged behavior, feelings and thoughts are most likely diseased. At present, we don't have drugs for dealing with every behavior, feeling or thought. But the discovery of ADDSMD has allowed us to recognize that there is not a single person who doesn't display some symptom that can be treated with drugs. With continued research and experimentation--for which we require government funding--we should be able to find a reason to put every single American on psychiatric drugs. And Obama's health plan should allow every one of these Americans to get the drugs they need. This is the road to mental health in this country. When every American is on psychiatric drugs, we will be free of all undesirable and nonconforming behavior, feelings and thoughts. And that is mental health. In addition, by keeping the pharmaceutical companies strong, this may also be a major step on the road back to economic health. By exposing the universal reality of mental illness, the discovery of ADDSMD has proven to be a blessing in disguise. We are in fact on the path to the full acceptance and enjoyment of mediocrity and conformity. And that is the path to a healthy society."

Fine, optimistic words from a fine example of her profession. Thank you, Dr. Schrinquac.