ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two particular elements of critique, theoretical and methodological. First, it revisit the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) and consider its validity as a guide to addressing mental health problems. Second, it concerns about methodology and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry have been raised – concerns that should make us think twice about the claims to scientific standing put forward by proponents of a biomedical discourse. The mental health system would make a fascinating case study in terms of how power works. Practising medicine involves the exercise of power, but given the benefits of medicine as a professional and social enterprise for the good of citizens and wider society, such power is generally regarded as legitimate, as the appropriate use of authority. The exercising of power within a democratic society, even in ways intended to be beneficent, needs to have a basis of legitimacy.
