The order of disorder.

The psychiatrists are at it again, defining mental "disorders."

“This is not cardiology or nephrology, where the basic diseases are well known,” said Edward Shorter, a leading historian of psychiatry whose latest book, “Before Prozac,” is critical of the manual. “In psychiatry no one knows the causes of anything, so classification can be driven by all sorts of factors” — political, social and financial.

“What you have in the end,” Mr. Shorter said, “is this process of sorting the deck of symptoms into syndromes, and the outcome all depends on how the cards fall.”...

Experts say that some of the most crucial debates are likely to include gender identity, diagnoses of illness involving children, and addictions like shopping and eating.

IN THE COMMENTS: Henry says:

The article reads like the jury of the 1864 French Salon deciding to let the landscape painters back in. The standard is grand historical disorders (megalomania is always good), but that is hardly fair to the duller lunatics. They too deserve a viewing.

So you let in a few en plein aire disorders and the next thing you know the academy is overrun with fauves.