Experts are baffled as they are concerned that following the release of the new draft of the diagnostic bible, which is published by the American Psychiatric Association, majority of the people would be diagnosed with some or other mental condition.

Since ages, the diagnosis of mental or psychiatric illness has been a tricky business, however, with the forthcoming fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the diagnosis would become more slippery and the line would become very thin.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is published by the American Psychiatric Association and the manual is widely used as a basis for diagnosis, research and medical education by the experts worldwide.

Reports claim that the forthcoming edition would encompass new range of diagnosis guidelines, which would also include conditions like ‘mixed anxiety depression, psychosis risk syndrome and temper dysregulation disorder’. Further, the base would narrow down as the routine things could also be diagnosed as an illness.

Following the same, the most perplexed and worried strata are the child doctors, who are anxious that the adolescents would receive aggressive treatment and in turn would be over treated.

They expressed their fears in the special issue of the Journal of Mental Health. According to them, minor modifications in the definition of concepts like depression would have adverse repercussions.

Worried about the same, Dr. Felicity Callard, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, said, "There are very big potential implications on how people, particularly adolescents, respond to being told they have a mental illness. It's likely there will be harmful consequences".