ABOUT THE PROJECT 🔍

Death to the DSM (DTTDSM) is a peer led, community based project with the objective of exploring and creating a guide based on our lived experiences as neurodivergent+ people – which, once complete, will be published as a zine.

Unlike the DSM, DTTDSM is for and by the people, and does not focus on what is considered ‘abnormal’ or ‘disordered’.

Our aim is to disrupt and destabilize ‘diagnoses’ and the pathologization of neurodivergence through promoting the idea that all people have differently functioning mind-bodies.

We will be seeking new ways to describe and understand our neurological, cognitive, behavioral, and emotional experiences outside of and in opposition to Western Psychiatry.

The DSM is the Diagnostic Statistical Manual used by medical model Psychiatry to diagnose and label human experience.

The DSM is a tool of oppression created by Western psychiatry, a system that has pathologised human experiences by constructing diagnosis’ such as ‘hysteria’, ‘homosexuality’, and ‘prolonged grief disorder’ - all of which have featured in various editions of the DSM.

The DSM is rooted in white supremacy, misogyny, ableism, and other systems of oppression from which it can not be separated.

Even if some of our experiences are uncomfortable or distressing, pathologisation puts us in danger and punishes us for experiencing mental distress and/or existing outside social norms.

We deserve better! And we can create better, in community and in conversation.

We are challenging the DSM’s exclusionary understanding of human bodies and minds by creating an alternative.

Our project aims to favour collective well-being and interdependence and value community-oriented and lived experience led research practices.

The in-development zine is made up of what we have chosen to call “profiles”. Some examples of profiles we will cover are the wide array in which neurodivergent+ people communicate, experiences of altered states, and more.

Addressing one profile at a time, NEUROMANCERS hosts monthly public workshops where, as peers and researchers, we gather lived experienced informed feedback from the community.

Those directly involved in the project (aka The Research Collective) then come together for private meetings to integrate this feedback into the zine.

See our Events page to sign up to our next free public workshop!

DTTDSM is a project run by NEUROMANCERS in-house Research Collective, a group of neurodivergent+ volunteers committed to creating evidence-based resources which further neurodivergent+ rights and health justice. 

Our research projects are:

• peer- and community-led

• centre marginalised communities within the neurodivergent+ umbrella

• have an impact on the lives of neurodivergent+ people and our wellbeing

If you’d like to propose a project and/or take part in the Research Collective, please learn how to apply here.

DTTDSM Time Commitments:

At the moment, the time commitment for those who run the DTTDSM project is around 4–6 hours per month, which includes a monthly Public Workshop (to collect feedback from the wider community) and a monthly Private Meeting (to integrate the feedback), as well as asynchronous administrative tasks and zine-writing/development.

If you would like to join us, please learn how to apply here.