Thanks to the hard work of several people (see Acknowledgements on
website), the website on psychiatric diagnoses has been completed, and
the press release is included below.

--------------------
For immediate release
Contact: Paula J. Caplan 617 491-0962

Citing Devastated Lives, Coalition Calls for Congressional Hearings
About Psychiatric Diagnosis

 - A horrifically, sexually abused five-year-old boy is given to his
abusive father to raise, because his mother is given a spurious
psychiatric diagnosis.
 - A 27-year-old woman stops breathing, nearly dies, and undergoes a
$750,000 hospital stay when her serious physical illness is missed
because she had been given a psychiatric diagnosis.
 - When a woman with no psychiatric history becomes disoriented after
being severely sleep-deprived, her husband drives her to a hospital and
tells the staff she has Bipolar Disorder, a label he chose himself. The
incurious staff immediately give her this label, thus making it
official, and lock her up, after which there follow the six worst weeks
of the woman 's life.
 - A woman is diagnosed with a psychiatric label about "premenstrual
disorder" that someone invented. As a result, her pelvic pains are
dismissed as all in her mind for decades. By the time her pelvic
infection is discovered, she has so much internal scar tissue that she
cannot bear children.
 - A brilliant, beautiful, five-year-old girl is put in foster care
after being abused and neglected. She is given a psychiatric diagnosis,
which becomes the focus of her "treatment," instead of anyone working
with her understandable anger about the horrific abuse and disruptions
she has endured.

  Because of stories like these, 40 organizations and more than 175
therapists, attorneys, and other individuals alarmed by the
often-hidden devastation people suffer just because they receive a
psychiatric label today issued a call for Congressional hearings about
psychiatric diagnosis. Their aim is to put the unscientific,
unregulated nature of psychiatric categories on the national, public
agenda.

Few of the tens of millions of people who are diagnosed as mentally ill
every year realize that simply getting a psychiatric label can cause
them serious harm even many, many years down the road, according to the
endorsers of the call, which was coordinated by Paula J. Caplan, Ph.D.,
a clinical and research psychologist.
The kinds of harm have included:
 - loss of the right to make decisions about one $B!G (Bs legal and medical
affairs
 - covering up of serious nonpsychiatric, medical conditions that need
treatment
 - loss of health insurance or skyhigh premiums
 - loss of child custody
 - plummeting of self-confidence

This issue affects people across the spectrum, regardless of social
class, education, sex, race, and age. But there is
 - No authorized government agency for regulating diagnosis
 - No one protecting citizens from this kind of harm
 - No one monitoring what happens with diagnosis

"There are excellent social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and
other therapists who do no harm, are aware of the possible adverse
consequences of diagnosis, and take steps to minimize the dangers of
such harm," says Caplan, who is Adjunct Professor at Washington College
of Law at American University, Visiting Scholar at Brown University,
and author of 11 books about psychological matters. "We want
Congressional hearings to provide a clear-sighted examination of the
pros and cons of psychiatric diagnosis. The nature and extent of harm
that many Americans have suffered solely because of being given a
psychiatric label need to be aired, and ways to minimize the harm can
be identified and implemented."

You can find more information about this initiative at
http://www.psychdiagnosis.net 
including more than 50 real-life stories about harm due 
to psychiatric diagnosis, four possible solutions, and the
list of endorsers of the call for Congressional hearings.

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