Abstract
ABSTRACT Widely eulogised as ‘the Bible of Psychiatry’, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association has an overbearing influence on psychiatric diagnosis in the USA and across the world. Even with subsequent revisions through decades, DSM faces mounting criticism with regards to its growing inclination to biopsychiatry, biomedical reductionism and medicalisation. These problems find unique expression in several graphic medical narratives on mental illnesses. Graphic medicine, an intersection of autobiographical narration and medium of comics, addresses the experience of a patient, a doctor/nurse or a care-giver in healthcare setting. These graphic enunciations expose the humane angle of illness experience against the authoritative voice of medicine and also critique its inhuman systems of oppression. This research article by drawing instances from and qualitatively close reading Peter de Wit’s DSM de Sigmund Methode (2013), Looney Brain’s zine MPD For You and Me (LB), Tatiana Gill’s Head Meds and Ellen Forney’s Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo & Me, investigates the deleterious effects of DSM on the diagnosis of mental disorders. In addition to the broader tenets of Mad Studies, the theoretical insights of Kenneth S. Kendler and Peter Conrad among others have been used in this article.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
