As a rationalist a freethinker and a devotee of science, you are a fraud.

Apparently you’d rather be a mule.

How many more newly discovered diseases are going to be in the new edition? Think of all those treatable people and the billable hours that will generate.

Will there be a disease syndrome with criticism of psychology as its major symptom? That is what you meant about going off the deep end, isn’t it?

However the DSM-IV is soon to be revised.

To be honest, I think you ran into one of the bad psychologists and are taking your anger out on everyone involved in the field. It’s not me you’re angry with, nor is it the field, but rather whoever it was that did you wrong. I’m sorry that happened and I’m sorry you feel you have to take it out on everything and everyone in the psych field, esp if I’m right with my theory. I seriously doubt you will admit it though and will deny it to the fullest extent just so you can find ways to prove that psychology is bad, when it really isn’t. That’s ok, I’ve dealt with people who had serious mental illnesses and survived their anger, so I can take it.

You might want to read the entire article and see that even the shrinks who use the tests use them for things they aren’t supposed to be used for. And it’s a pretty important matter.

But how correct would they be? The answer is important
because psychologists frequently apply such “projective” instruments
(presenting people with ambiguous images, words
or objects) as components of mental assessments, and because
the outcomes can profoundly affect the lives of the respondents.
The tools often serve, for instance, as aids in diagnosing mental
illness, in predicting whether convicts are likely to become
violent after being paroled, in evaluating the mental stability of
parents engaged in custody battles, and in discerning whether
children have been sexually molested.

Notice that some of these uses could clearly wreck someones’ life.

And it really doesn’t answer my question, if they are not scientifically valid now how could they ever have been valid during the decades they’ve been foisted on an innocent public? I believe the Rorschach is still claimed to be under copyright by those with a financial interest in their publication, though they certainly shouldn’t be. Is the Able Screen or any of the myriad of other tests which seem to spring up as easily as new mental diseases in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, valid? Are some and not others? Since they are often used in the judicial system and to determine employment and educational opportunities a bogus test can have a major negative impact on lives of people, probably much more so than the average fortune teller. Just the fee for taking the test dwarfs what your typical, neighborhood fortune teller would charge and they don’t typically string people along for years at three figures an hour.

No, psychology is a mess and there is no sign that it is willing to clean itself up and anyone who tries will have the full weight of a class of very wealthy practitioners fighting reform tooth and nail.