Many therapists already consider applying DMS diagnoses a "pointless exercise," but the book is relied upon by doctors "too intellectually lazy to think about patients as individuals, or too fond of the many freebies that the drug companies provide," says Rowe.

"All of us are already are in the fourth edition of the DSM,'' she writes. "According to my copy, on page 673, it states, '301.9 Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified'. That's you."

Rowe's commentary is just the latest attack on the upcoming fifth edition of the DMS due out in 2013, which includes the new diagnoses such as "mixed anxiety depression," "psychosis risk syndrome," and temper dysregulation disorder."

A recent BBC story on the updated edition quotes Professor Til Wykes of King's College London, the editor of the Journal of Mental Health, as saying " most of these changes [to the manual] imply a more inclusive system of diagnoses where the pool of normality shrinks to a mere puddle." The BBC story is but one coming out of the United Kingdom critical of the DSM.

But concern is growing on this side of the pond too, where AOLHealth yesterday published a story headlined, " Is Anyone Normal? Toddler Tantrums, Binge Eating May Be Newest Mental Disorders."

Rowe and other critics say DSM labels patients while masking the real problems.

"When we keep making a mess of our life we need someone to help us face the truths about which we've been lying to ourselves,'' Rowe writes. "But when we are given a diagnosis we disappear behind that diagnosis, and the diagnosis is all the unthinking people see."