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Sammanfattning

Psychiatric diagnoses are man-made creations founded on culturally defined normative evaluations of different ways of acting, feeling and thinking, and therefore historically and culturally contingent. In the latest diagnostic manuals (especially DSM-5), a wide range of human character traits are now attached to diagnostic labels. Based on theories and perspectives from the sociology of diagnosis, this paper argues that through these new diagnoses we might end up shrinking the space for normality and reduce our tolerance for human diversity, and thereby create stigma and deviance. The historical roots of these arguments trace back to the 1960s, when the anti-psychiatry movement fed on sociological discussions of health, illness and deviance in their opposition towards the increasing medicalisation of human life. It is now timely to revive these discussions.

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