Bias: Thinking about College Student Psychotherapy versus Drug Treatment and Disability

This article traces a major trend linked to our nation's epidemic of mental and emotional disability. In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-III) essentially limited diagnostic evaluation and treatment to listing and targeting symptoms. Now, Americans are increasingly labeled as mentally disabled, and more college and university students are coming to campus with psychiatric diagnoses and medications. In contrast to the prevailing professional and public belief in this reductionist, symptom-targeting system of diagnosis and treatment, a rapidly growing body of independent research suggests that although the system greatly profits its providers, it causes more harm than help for patients and society. College psychotherapists should counter the common false beliefs about “mental illness” that lead to disabling treatment, and advance a strengthening psychosocial orientation, including psychotherapy.