> Yes, 70 years ago psychiatry had some odd ideas.
Yes, that's true, but in the name of accuracy, the Asperger's fiasco wasn't 70 years ago, it played out seven years ago, when the condition was finally abandoned after an epidemic of phony diagnoses (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/health/03asperger.html).
The Recovered Memory Therapy fiasco wasn't 70 years ago, it played out in the 1990s -- you remember, when virgins could claim to have been raped and be believed (http://arachnoid.com/trouble_with_psychology)?
The homosexual fiasco wasn't 70 years ago, it played out in the 1970s, when homosexuality was finally abandoned as a diagnosis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_psychology).
But in all these cases, the abandoned diagnoses can still be offered by mental health professionals, and some still are, simply because there isn't any science sufficiently persuasive to say "no" to anything psychiatrists and psychologists care to do.
> It's frustrating that you only make these comments about psychiatry - you don't pop up in geography threads to say "Wait, what? Does this mean geographers don't still believe in fixed immovable continents?".
Geologists don't have clinics. Geologists don't issue press releases telling us how sick we all are, and how desperately in need of talk therapy.
> A therapy might be involved if a person is hearing voices, but isn't particularly bothered by them.
My point is very simple -- the health resources directed toward psychiatry and psychology, for what are fact either nonexistent or biological ailments, are wasted, and would be better spent on real science. Thomas Insel's (director of the NIMH) proposed abandonment of the DSM was a good first step (http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-rats-of-n-i-m-h), but more needs to be done.