Shrinks Consider Racism as "Mental Illness" for the DSM

The heedless drive to medicalize all social problems continues. The Washington Post reports that psychiatrists are now considering adding racism, homophobia, etc. to the DSM:

Mental health practitioners say they regularly confront extreme forms of racism, homophobia and other prejudice in the course of therapy, and that some patients are disabled by these beliefs. As doctors increasingly weigh the effects of race and culture on mental illness, some are asking whether pathological bias ought to be an official psychiatric diagnosis.

Inevitably, psychiatrists are already envisioning"medication" (think of the commercials?) to treat this potential new disease:

Doctors who treat inmates at the California State Prison outside Sacramento concur: They have diagnosed some forms of racist hatred among inmates and administered antipsychotic drugs.

"We treat racism and homophobia as delusional disorders," said Shama Chaiken, who later became a divisional chief psychologist for the California Department of Corrections, at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association."Treatment with antipsychotics does work to reduce these prejudices."

The next stage after that will probably be twelve step programs and mandatory"treatment programs."