Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness

How did shyness - once considered a harmless personality trait - become a psychiatric condition in need of treatment?

In the 1970s, a small group of leading psychiatrists met behind closed doors and literally rewrote the book on their profession. Revising and greatly expanding the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM for short), they turned what had been a thin, spiral-bound handbook into a hefty tome. Almost overnight the number of diagnoses exploded. The result was a windfall for the pharmaceutical industry and a massive conflict of interest for psychiatry at large. This spellbinding book is the first behind-the-scenes account of what really happened and why.

With unprecedented access to the American Psychiatric Association archives and previously classified memos from drug company executives, the award-winning scholar Christopher Lane unearths the disturbing truth: with little scientific justification and sometimes hilariously improbable rationales, hundreds of conditions - among them shyness - are now defined as psychiatric disorders and considered treatable with drugs. Lane shows how long-standing disagreements within the profession set the stage for these changes, and he assesses who has gained and what’s been lost in the process of medicalizing emotions. With dry wit, he demolishes the façade of objective research behind which the revolution in psychiatry has hidden. He finds a profession riddled with backbiting and jockeying, and even more troubling, a profession increasingly beholden to its corporate sponsors.

As we reflect on the story of shyness and the history of the DSM, we are left with pressing questions about misdiagnosis and the overprescribing of SSRI antidepressants: What does it mean to be mentally healthy in a world where normal behavior is increasingly pathologized? And how can we ensure that the pursuit of mental wellness is guided by science, not profit? Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness is a thought-provoking exploration of these questions and more.