To the Editor:
Re “Redefining Mental Illness,” by T. M. Luhrmann (Op-Ed, Jan. 18):
While many experiences — such as hearing voices — can occur without illness, a psychiatric diagnosis is more than a single symptom. The clustering of many symptoms together when combined with persistent distress and functional impairment is required for any consideration of a mental disorder.
Such approaches have been central to clinical medicine for centuries and are a precursor to the scientific understanding of the causes and mechanisms of disease, not an end in themselves.
Ms. Luhrmann notes approvingly that the National Institute of Mental Health, in beginning a program called Research Domain Criteria, determined that existing psychiatric diagnoses “were neither particularly useful nor accurate for understanding the brain, and would no longer be used to guide research.”
[For more go to http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01...mp;assetType=opinion]
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