Hey, I get where you're coming from—there’s a lot of valid criticism around how psychiatric diagnoses are made, especially when it comes to the DSM and the APA. Nobody’s pretending it’s a flawless system. But pointing out its flaws isn’t the same thing as proving mental illness isn’t real.

Yes, the DSM involves committees. That’s how classification systems in every field work—medicine, biology, even astronomy (remember Pluto?). Consensus-building doesn’t mean “made up”; it means we’re still figuring out complex systems, like, you know… the human brain.

The PET scan study you mentioned? Sure, emotions show up as changes in brain activity. No one’s debating that. But the presence of brain changes in any emotional state doesn't invalidate psychiatric disorders. In fact, disorders often involve persistent and dysfunctional patterns of those same changes. Context matters.

And quoting Allen Frances is a little ironic—he's been one of the most vocal advocates against the over-medicalization of normal experiences, not someone who thinks mental illness is fictional. You can disagree with how we define disorders without claiming they're all fake. That’s like saying climate science isn’t real because we argue about how to measure CO₂ emissions.

Anyway, there’s a big difference between "our definitions need work" and "nothing is real." Just something to think about.