Following the double murder of his parents, Rob Reiner and Michelle Singer, it’s been reported that the alleged murderer, Nick Reiner, the victims’ son, suffers from a history of mental illness that, it’s implied, accounts for his horrific deed.  

What few people, regardless of their politics, ever think to ask is: What is a “mental disorder”?

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), “the bible” of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), currently lists approximately 300 “mental disorders.” Yet despite the fact that psychiatry uses the grammar of pathology, so-called “mental disorders” are most definitely not natural kinds. 

A natural kind exists in the world independently of and prior to human attempts to classify it. It is something that humans discover: chemical elements, infectious diseases, and physiological pathologies like tumors, lesions, and organ failure are all natural kinds. A natural kind exists in nature. It belongs to the furniture of the universe, as it were.

“Mental disorders,” in stark contrast, are nominal or classificatory kinds: They are names or descriptions of clusters of behaviors. They are most definitely not found in the world.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that human beings don’t genuinely suffer or that psychiatrists (and/or other practitioners in the mental health field) cannot be helpful in mitigating human suffering. People do suffer and credentialed experts have indeed been of service in addressing their patients’ needs. This, though, does not change the fact that while psychiatry avails itself of the grammar of pathology, its vocabulary of “mental disorder” or “illness” references nothing in the real world. 

Pathologists are etiologists: They search for underlying causes of........

© Townhall