Mental Health Trojan Horse »

Significantly, the new coverage of mental illness covers a vast array of the “worried well,” who have no neurological or mental disorders but simply have problems in living. Support for mental health parity in the new health reform bills relies on the public’s false inference that the prototypical mental disorder is dementia or some other organically based brain disease, which constitute only a tiny percentage and atypical sampling of the hundreds of “mental disorders” listed in DSM-IV.

Typically, psychiatrists label those unhappy people they concede have no physical illness as having “social anxiety disorder” or some other equally benign “disorder.” Such people can be in costly, insurance-covered therapy indefinitely. As one psychologist told us, “Anyone who comes in with any problem can be diagnosed as having ‘adjustment disorder.’ ” (e.g., “with anxiety,” DSM-IV Code 309.24).