Friends: I have a to take a class for Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College this summer called “Human Behavior 3” which is basically a bunch of students having to memorize the DSM-V. I’ve been putting off learning the DSM for many years (see this essay I wrote critiquing the DSM that actually gets taught at Smith School of Social Work) and I’ve been thinking hard about using the class as an excuse to crowd source a bunch of writing and ideas from my fellow classmates for alternative language that’s grounded in anti-oppression analysis and the reality of political and economic and social suffering that’s completely lost in a biological diagnostic system. I’ve been thinking about calling it the “People’s DSM Project” or the “People’s DSM Rewrite” or “Revision” or something. Anyway, class starts in a couple weeks, I think I’m going to make a space for it on my website and make a facebook group and hopefully it will keep my soul intact while I learn those codes.
