I think your thoughts and feelings about diagnosis is very understandable as are you questions.

The nomenclature of psychiatry and psychology has a history and is open to the future. By open to the future, I mean that both psychology and psychiatry are not at the end of their roads today, May 11, 2023. Does that make any sense?

It is sometimes easy to fall into the illusion that one is living at a period of time where one is very close to the end of a science.

Some 19th century psychologists wrote in a style to sort of suggest that while previous thinkers were fumbling in the dark so to speak, now in the 19th century, psychology had reached the basic concepts and the deep levels of understanding.

Many thought that future psychology would end up being a mere filling in of little details on the basic understanding.

But history does not stand still. Are we at the last few miles of psychology as a science or are we perhaps a hundred or a thousand years away from the greatest understanding possible of the human mind and human behavior?


Psychology is part of a history that it not yet finished and is open to new discoveries and understandings.

Mental health professionals [hopefully always following the best science of the time] have concepts and categories which are used because of their helpfulness. And this includes diagnoses.

We often live by simplifying complex things. I mean we need to make maps in order to help ourselves along in life.

The science of psychology has its maps too. Different schools of psychology often have somewhat differing maps. Neo-Freudians, Jungians, Cognitive Behavioral Therapists, Existential Therapists and so on have slightly different maps.

Although there is an attempt to keep controversies in mental health science out of sight from patients and possible patients, such controversies do exist.

So I think it is sometimes helful to not be overly scared or reassured by a diagnosis made by a mental health professional.

Sometimes it is helpful to consult more that one mental health professional when one is diagnosed. I am not promoting "doctor shopping." Just suggesting that in a matter as important as one's mental health, it can sometimes be helpful to get one, two, even three different views by professionals.

There are certain features of the relationship between therapist and patient which is not often appreciated. The relationship is a bit unique.


While there is oversight of the mental health professions, there is no oversight of individual therapy sessions. One is supposed to allow an "authority" to advise one.


There are certain unspoken rules. The therapist can ask the patient anything but the patient is not allowed to probe the personal life of the therapist.

The patient has little power over the therapist while the therapist often has the power to involuntarily commit the patient to a psychiatric hospital. So there is some inequality in this relationship which is different from other relationships.

Often disagreement with a therapist is seen in a derogatory way as resistance, a sign of illness or stubborness.


Of course in ordinary conversations, equals often think that people who disagree with them are so-to-speak "crazy." But the relationship between a therapist and patient is not one of equality exactly. The therapist has a great deal of power over a person who is often at one of the most vulnerable stages of their life.

And one is usually all alone with a therapist.

There is not total consensus among mental health professionals. An individual practitioner might have various views regarding the parts played by genetics, biology, other heritable factors, socialization and so on in the genesis of psychological distress.

Thus individual therapists can differ on how they view treatment modalities such as medication, individual talk therapy, group therapy and so on.

Therapists themselves are all human beings. Some are wrestling with life problems of their own. As human beings every therapist can have a bad day and so on.

Sorry that this seems so impersonal and has the stink of the laboratory about it. I myself have had issues with diagnoses!

I am not telling you all this to bore you silly or scare you. The reason I share these things with you is so that you will be able to try at least to maintain some sense of understanding of how things are and options that are open to you.

A psychological and psychiatric diagnosis can be quite unnerving. Some people are happy to finally get a diagnosis. Others might treat a diagnosis as a sign of weakness or failure. We all react differently to things at times.


Some things classified as mental illnesses are now no longer so classified, at least by the majority of mental health professionals. Some concepts and ideas which were once thought to be the be all and end all of psychological understanding have now sort of faded into general disuse although they still have their champions.

I think can be very helpful to keep in mind that you as a person are made of up of millions and things and events and cannot be fairly reduced to a "diagnosis."


You are way too deep and complex to be able to be simplified in this way. It would be like trying to fit the ocean into a teacup. You are a million times more than a diagnosis, even if that diagnosis is helpful.

I hope all these words prove helpful to you in some way and not just a waste of your valuable time to read. I hope they will not ramp up your distress but given you a little peace of mind after the sort of shock of being diagnosed.


I ask your pardon if anything I have written has made you feel bad. I am not a sage. I am often wrong about things.

It is very hard to know what to say to someone experiencing distress. There are many members here with more knowledge, experience, insight and wisdom than I have and I sincerely hope they will see your post and respond with something more helpful to you than my poor words.

My biggest hope is you are going to get through this time and feel better, however than is accomplished.