The DSM-5 Desk Reference is Highway Robbery

This spring the American Psychiatric Association, after more the 8 years of delays, released the 5th version of the DSM, the DSM 5! Being such an important document in the field, all clinicians need to learn it, and it makes sense for most mental health professionals to buy a copy. What will this book run you? $200!

Ok, ok. $200 is a lot, but I get it. It’s an important book, no one has had to buy a new one since 1998 (ish) when the DSM-4TR came out, and the APA needs to recoup its 15 years of inefficiencies in publishing this thing. Fine.

You know what, on second thought, I’ll let the undergrads buy the ‘text book’ version, I’m just going to pick up this LITTLE, TINY, BITTY, POCKET-SIZED desk reference CLIFF NOTES version here….

$70!?!? Are you freaking kidding me?? Look at the thing!

This book is going to stay where it belongs, on the shelf at Barnes and Noble. I’ll get the information I need off the interweb and buy a copy of the manual for $20 at the end of next semester when every undergrad is hocking his/her copy on Amazon.

Thanks for forever pissing everyone off, American Psychiatric Association.

BTW, it looks like the NIH (National Institutes of Health), thoroughly underwhelmed with the political nonsense that made its way into the content of the DSM 5, is working on their own, competing, guide. Our tax dollars pay for the NIH, so there’s a good chance if/when that document becomes available, it will be a free download.

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