Labels can be dangerous. The DSM was designed to put names to an accepted number of thoughts and behaviors that can be delineated. Then one professional would understand the nature of the people someone else is dealing with. But once a label is given, it can basically take a life of its own--especially when lay people start getting involved.

Even within a label--say, bipolar, there are a lot of different kinds of behaviors--such as some people with bipolar are more manic than depressed or rapid-cyclers or not, mildly manic (even hypomanic) or even manic with psychotic thoughts, and so on.

What particularly irks me as a psychologist is the tendency for people to confuse schizophrenia with multiple personality disorder.

And it's common for someone who is studying abnormal psych to start labeling friends and relatives and even strangers.

By the way, I do say "I have bipolar disorder" instead of "I'm bipolar," at least most of the time. After all, people don't say "I am cancer" if they have cancer.

I don't know if I touched on anything you folks are concerned about, but I did want to make these statements.

Trav, Ph.D.