HOW Many Americans with Psychiatric Disorders?

I'm reading a book called Please Don't Label My Child by Scott M. Shannon, MD. Shannon is a holistic doctor, and his message is summed up in his subtitle: "Break the Doctor-Diagnosis-Drug Cycle and Discover Safe, Effective Choices for Your Child's Emotional Health." Clearly, then, this book has a specific agenda, which parents may or may not agree with.

What intrigued me about the book was not so much its content (it's interesting, but others have covered the same ground), but its introduction. Embedded in the author's prose are a few nuggets which were new to me - and really got me thinking. For example:

In a survey conducted from 2001 to 2002 and released in 2005, the NIMH postulated that more than 46% of the American population would meet the criteria used by the psychiatric industry for a mental illness.

Obviously, this statistic is meant to shock. Truth is, it did shock me.

I know, of course, that the number of people with psychiatric labels has grown. But the idea that nearly half of our population would qualify for a label is extraordinary. I haven't doublechecked the author's citation, so can't speak for its accuracy - but if it was true back six or eight years ago, I'm guessing it's even truer today.

Dr. Shannon calls this phenomenon of increasing diagnosability "diagnosis creep." His idea is that our definitions of disorders are expanding bit by bit, to the point where almost any unusual behavior or quirk will become part of a described syndrome.

This idea isn't new... but it is a bit scary. Perhaps the scariest part, for me, is that while Shannon seems completely sure that the problem is in the labels, and not the children, I'm not completely sure he's right.