DSM‐5 and the ‘Psychosis Risk Syndrome’

Abstract

The current system of diagnosis in psychiatry, whereby complex human problems are reduced to reified entities denoting medical illnesses located in the individual “mind”, is value‐laden and likely to be influenced by stereotypes and images of people held in society. The use of psychiatric diagnoses cross‐culturally is problematic. Black British people of African‐Caribbean ethnicity are over‐represented among people given the diagnosis schizophrenia/psychosis. This situation is explicable in terms of cultural misunderstanding coupled with institutional racism. Extending the diagnosis of schizophrenia/psychosis to children and young people by incorporating a category “psychosis risk syndrome” in DSM‐5 would have serious consequences for human rights.