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What exactly is a "mental disorder"? For that matter, what criteria should determine whether any condition is a "disease" or a "disorder"? Is "disease" something like an oak tree-a physical object you can bump into or put your arms around? Or are terms like "disease" and "disorder" merely abstract, value-laden constructs, akin to "injustice" and "immorality"? Are categories of disease and disorder fundamentally different in psychiatry than in other medical specialties? And-by the way-how do the terms "disease," "disorder," "syndrome," "malady," "sickness," and "illness" differ? Anyone who believes there are easy or certain answers to these questions is either in touch with the Divine Mind, or out of touch with reality. To appreciate the complexity and ambiguity in this conceptual arena, consider this quote from the venerable Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry: "The term 'mental illness' is probably best used for those disorders that are intuitively most like bodily illness (or disease) and, yet, mental rather than bodily. This of course implies everything that is built into the mind-brain problem!"1(p11) In a single sentence, we are already grappling with the terms "illness," "disorder," and "disease," not to mention Cartesian psychology! And yet-daunting though these issues are-they are central to the practical task now before the DSM-V committees: figuring out what conditions ought to be included as psychiatric disorders.

In 2004, the Seattle Times published the first photograph of the coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq being shipped back to the United States. Tami Silicio, the woman who took that photograph, was a military contractor working at the airport in Kuwait where the coffins were loaded onto planes to be flown back to the U.S. Ms. Silicio had taken the photograph with no thought of publishing it, even though she later said she was unaware that there was any ban on taking photographs of the coffins.

A Washington D.C.-based radio reporter says his audio storage device was inappropriately confiscated Tuesday by Veterans Affairs officials after he interviewed a patient at a VA Medical Center forum.

Schultz is a reporter with Public Radio station WAMU. Last Tuesday night, he was covering a public event at the V.A. Hospital in Washington, D.C. While interviewing one of the veterans about the poor treatment he was receiving at the hands of the V.A., Ms. Hairston demanded that Schultz stop recording the interview and hand over his recording equipment.

The military does not want Iraq veterans to be diagnosed with PTSD, a condition that obligates the military to provide expensive, intensive long-term care, including the possibility of lifetime disability payments.

"Marines treated at Camp Lejeune for post-traumatic stress had to undergo therapy for months in temporary trailers where they could hear bomb blasts, machine-gun fire and war cries through the thin walls, according to servicemen and their former psychiatrist. The eight trailers were used for nearly two years, until a permanent clinic was completed in September in another location on the base, said a Camp Lejeune medical spokesman, Navy Lt. j.g. Mark Jean-Pierre. The allegations became public after the dismissal of Dr. Kernan Manion, a civilian psychiatrist who says he was fired for writing memos to his military superiors complaining of shoddy care of Marines returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD, a condition that can make patients jumpy, fearful of loud noises and prone to flashbacks. "