Life is complex and we humans will do our utmost to make it less so. We make decisions using ''rules of thumb'', we abide by the ''good book'', the guide book or the rule book, or we ask an expert.

Expertise is recognised by the easy flow of professional jargon and the liberal use of acronyms. Albert Einstein told us that we should make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. Take the disciplines of psychology and psychiatry.

Our guide book contains the principles of EBM (evidence-based medicine); our rule book requires that we deliver ESTs (empirically supported therapies) identified by RCTs (randomised controlled trials). When it comes to mental health treatments, the SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) have made it onto the top 10 on the acronym chart.

Prozac arrived in 1974 and the DSM III (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 3rd Edition) in 1980. This edition represented an attempt to standardise the naming of psychiatric conditions and to list identifying symptoms for each condition. Two things followed. Big Pharma medicalised a profession that should be centrally concerned with meaning-making, and the DSM focused attention onto diagnosis and symptoms at the expense of the suffering human being in his relational world.

However, it was hailed as the tablets from the mount by insurers, the legal and criminal justice systems, and disability, employment and research agencies because it had simplified a very complex issue (mental health).