hey crystal. i think i hear what you are saying: sometimes being given a diagnosis helps to normalise ones experience (other people have this too! there are treatments that can help me! etc).

trouble is...

i think it is possible to normalise someones experience and give them hope that things can get better WITHOUT imposing a diagnostic category on them.

(so the benefits can be obtained in other ways)

furthermore...

there can be very real harms that result from someone having a dx category imposed on them (such that clinicians are likely to assume rather than assess symptoms, such that clients are often informed they have a chronic condition thereby making it more likely to be so and so on and so forth).

of course we seem to need some threshold / categorical thing for the purposes of health insurance...

but IMHO it is a sad sad day indeed when political issues outweigh the scientific issues with respect to teh classification of mental disorders.