According to Frances and other like-minded critics, a confluence of related factors resulted in an "over-medicalizing" and over-diagnosis of mental illness.

CNN: Are we over-diagnosing mental illness?

"What motivates me is the experience of having inadvertently contributed to fads and psycho-diagnosis that have resulted in over-diagnosis and over-treatment, " Frances said.

CNN: Are we over-diagnosing mental illness?

"This is likely to reduce the risk of over-diagnosis while still enabling early cancer detection among those most likely to gain from early diagnosis, " they say.

BBC: Prostate cancer: Case to test men in their 40s

' But we risk losing legitimacy because of over-diagnosis.

CNN: Are we over-diagnosing mental illness?

Around 40% of college students engage in binge drinking frequently enough that they might qualify for the diagnosis -- but only 5% of graduates over 26 are current alcoholics.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The cardiovascular death rate, meanwhile, was more than twice as high among the men in the first month after diagnosis than it was among cancer-free men, although it was just 9 percent higher over the course of the whole year.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS