Abstract:
In South Africa, careless implementation of child psychiatry‟s biomedical model of
„mental disorder‟ could stigmatise children and youth who have been made vulnerable
by the lingering effects of apartheid - poverty and malnutrition, violence and abuse, and
the HIV/AIDS pandemic. A focus on DSM-5 category changes – regarding posttraumatic
stress disorder and ADHD - demonstrates that these psychiatric labels are
impracticable and irrelevant in a post-colonial developing country where mental health
care is delivered in the context of scarce services and unequal access. A social
constructivist perspective enables us to broaden policy decisions and suggest directions
for research.
