Thanks for alerting me to this review. I generally do not respond to reviews, but I’m afraid I must bring a serious problem in this review to your attention.

In the review, Dr. Nathan writes,

I’m glad Dr Nathan was entertained, but if I am reading this correctly (and I am not sure I am; the passage is not entirely clear), he is suggesting that I have fabricated interview material. That is a very serious charge, and I am surprised that you allowed it to be published without offering me an opportunity to respond, especially in the absence of any evidence for it. (I am distinguishing here between an opinion about the merits of a book, which of course Dr Nathan is entitled to express without my input or knowledge, and an allegation about my integrity.) I am fully prepared to prove that every quote in The Book of Woe is accurate; every interview was transcribed and the voice file archived. I would also point out that although many of the people quoted are unhappy about the way they were depicted, not one of them has ever challenged the accuracy of the quotes.

I note that earlier in the essay, Dr Nathan cites a quotation from Darrel Regier regarding Allen Frances, and then goes on to quote further from my book in the extract that ends, “Blinded by pride…” Again, Dr Nathan’s prose is a little hard to parse, but from his subsequent comment, “These are surprisingly unrestrained comments by Regier,” it would appear that he thinks that the extracted material is a quote from REgier. It is not. It is my gloss on Regier’s comment, and there is nothing in the Book of Woe that would indicate otherwise.

I mention this in part because it is possible that Dr Nathan’s skepticism may be based in part on the unlikelihood of Regier ever saying anything like this. If that is the case, then the problem here is compounded: he is offering as evidence for his serious charge about my credibility a quotation that any reasonable person familiar with the DSM-5 (including me) would agree is indeed incredible–if its source is alleged to be Regier. That is Dr Nathan’s error, not mine.

Of course, it is entirely possible that I am misreading Dr Nathan, although it’s hard to find a meaning other than the one to which I am objecting–that he is alleging dishonesty on my part. But if that is somehow the case, then I would ask that you re-edit that sentence to convey the meaning that Dr. Nathan intends. I also think you should clarify that the extract that includes the comment about Frances’s being blinded by pride is not a quote from Regier. Finally, and most important, I must insist that you either get DR Nathan to cite his evidence for his charge and allow me an opportunity to respond, or remove it from the review.

I wish I could take this with a grain of salt, be entertained, and move on, but I make my living in part as a writer of nonfiction, and I cannot afford to have my honesty questioned in this fashion. I hope you can appreciate the seriousness of this matter, and its urgency for me. I fully intend to be collegial and cordial about working this out, and you will find me a very reasonable negotiator,m but rest assured I will not hesitate to take legal action against you and Dr Nathan if we cannot reach a satisfactory accommodation.

You may reach me by email or atxxx-xxx-xxxx

Regards,

Gary Greenberg, Ph.D.

Now, to their great credit, PsycCritiques responded immediately and worked with me over the next couple of weeks to solve this problem.  They were a little slow to remove the review from the site while it was being revised, but otherwise they were cordial and collegial and ultimately changed the text and ran a correction, linked to the original article. The correction was unequivocal. See for yourself.

Correction to Nathan (2013)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0034634

This is a correction to a previously published article: DSM–5: The Perfect Storm

The review “DSM–5: The Perfect Storm” (PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 58, No. 45, Article 3) contained three errors.

1.   In the paragraph that begins “For example, Greenberg quotes Regier as remarking,” the full paragraph should read as follows:

For example, Greenberg quotes Regier as remarking, of Frances, as early as 2010, “His major critique [was that] nothing has changed in the scientific world since his revision and hence no substantive revision is possible” and “that his judgment on the pragmatic consequences of revisions should take precedence over any of the experts” (p. 138). In other words, according to Greenberg’s understanding of Regier’s comments, Frances was

trumping up his personal grievance into a broadside against the institution he once served and in the bargain calling into question the credibility of the APA. . . . Blinded by pride, he had become his own kind of antipsychiatrist and, even worse, a turncoat. (p. 138)

2.   The sentence immediately following the quotation above should be deleted.  That sentence read as follows: “These are surprisingly unrestrained comments by Regier, presumably speaking for both himself and Kupfer.”

3.   In the paragraph titled Final Word (referring to The Book of Woe), phrases in the third to last and second to last sentences should be deleted, and the last three sentences of the paragraph should read as follows: “Much of this material is fascinating. I am entertained by all of it. Greenberg writes very well.”  The deleted phrases are underlined in the following two sentences from the original review:

Much of this material is fascinating, although the credibility of some of Greenberg’s interview material is uncertain. I am inclined to take parts of it with a grain of salt and be entertained by all of it.

The deleted text conveys the impression that Greenberg had fabricated the quotations. There is no evidence for this assertion.  It should not have been included in the original article, and PsycCRITIQUES regrets the error.

 The review has been modified to reflect the above edits.

This is a totally menschy apology. It made me feel better, it righted a wrong, and it closed the book on this issue. In other words, it did exactly what an apology was supposed to do. And it would have receded into the backroads of my memory had it not been for an incident that occurred a couple of weeks later, which I will write about in my next post.