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ultramar · Mar 18, 2013, 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by newtus

the thing that sort of gets me with professionals in this field is why so many of them have different conclusions or dxs for someone. i understand its common and ive been through it too but for something thats studied heavily in years and practiced daily nowadays - youd think it would mostly be unanimous - the dx. i mean they all use the same manual etc

idk maybe im being too judgemental. but for a field that considers itself a science - the conclusions reached - youd think most everyone would be on board.

I feel like some of the disagreement may come from severity of symptoms -the threshold of severity that 'qualifies' for a certain diagnosis. Lots of people can experience all kinds of symptoms in the DSM, but the severity of them I think is pretty subjective and not well guided by the DSM. I have a feeling that that's where at least some of the disagreement stems from.

I think with Bipolar some of the confusion (and which can also be pretty subjective) is if symptoms stem from a life event or sort of out of the blue. Of course it's not that simple, because bipolar episodes can actually be triggered by environmental circumstances. So I think this is pretty subjective on the part of the psychiatrist and also on the part of the patient (for example, someone might not remember or recognize while talking to their psychiatrist that x happened just before the onset of symptoms). All pretty subjective.

I think there's also confusion over what a 'normal' (or within 'normal limits') reaction to a life event is and what's 'pathological.' i.e. normal grief from the death of a loved one vs clinical depression, or you're going through a terrible divorce vs major depression, you go on a huge spending spree (for any number of reasons) vs mania, you're promiscuous (for any number of reasons) vs mania, etc., etc.

Sorry this is off topic. To the OP, I wish you the best. I really would try to parse out with both of them as to why they think you fit the criteria for one and not the other and ask if you might fit the criteria for both.