[Zigurd]

> without causing harm to others

Not all of them all the time, of course. And some of them never. But the same could be said of pedophiles. Whatever you may think of the DSM, sociopathy is listed as a disorder. It is associated with violent crime and crimes against humanity.

Or, look at it this way: Let's say you're not a sociopath and a taking MDMA is just a pleasant experience. Wouldn't it be worthwhile to administer it prophylactically? Or in vocations, like policing, where there's a large risk of developing sociopathy. Might make your next flight less dicey.

[Lawtonfogle]

To be fair, in the DSM-V pedophilia was replaced with pedophilic disorder which requires either significant distress or actually acting to harm. The attraction, in and of itself, is not considered a disorder. (Granted, must of the population, even among psychologist/psychiatrist, have differing feelings about this.)

That being said, if we could replace the attraction with a more statistically normal one tomorrow, I would say to do so because it would make the world a better place.

[electronvolt]

If you replaced your argument for treating potential sociopaths with "treating potential gay people", do you see why that's a kind of dangerous approach to psychiatric diseases?

It's pretty dicey to just say "it's a disorder in the DSM associated with (negative things) and therefore we should push for administration of treatment to otherwise healthy/happy people."

It isn't too long ago now that being gay was also in the DSM. Respected scientists claimed all sorts of "harm" that the "gay lifestyle" caused to people in it and outside of it.

I suppose my question is: your logic would you suggest that it is worthwhile or valuable to administer prophylactic treatment to every DSM disorder, for those considered "at risk." You assert that MDMA is "just a pleasant experience", but I'd counterclaim that no drug is always just a pleasant experience, and you always need to consider the side effects (which for MDMA read like the side effects of many legal psychiatric drugs that affect the seratonin/dopamine/norepinephrine system). Keeping in mind that psychiatric disorders are some of the few disorders where the consent of the patient still isn't absolutely legally necessary to administer treatment, that means that you are arguing that these should be at least considered for administration to actively unwilling patients.

Given the difficulty of diagnosing these illnesses in the first place and the possibility of misdiagnosis (see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment), I think it's important to be careful of the arguments made for treatments. Treatments often are applied to involuntary patients (who may be considered incapable), and both the DSM and psychology (as a science) are not some be-all, end-all bible of things that can be stated to be definitively negative or harmful or unwanted which exist outside of the culture they're formed in.

[Zigurd]

You missed my point: In the use of MDMA, is there a downside to misdiagnosis? Let's say MDMA was effective treating alcoholism, but had no therapeutic effect, nor any harmful effect, on anyone else. Lots of people take it recreationally. We can certainly find out if that population is suffering any negative consequences.

I take your point about the dubiousness of some parts of the DSM. But what's your theory about sociopaths? Are you seriously suggesting sociopathy will be redeemed in some way?