I didn't know where to put this, so if it should go elsewhere, I assume it will be moved...

Do you think it such a good thing to have so many "labels" in the mental illness world? I feel as if every day someone comes up with a new one. Probably, if I read enough Wikipedia I would feel as if I should go inpatient and never come out. I could find a name for every little thing that I have and it would be in the hundreds.

I guess I'm a little annoyed, especially because so many people are self-diagnosing, or (even worse) suggesting a diagnosis (actually just throwing out the name of something they read) for someone they know...or don't know.

I am NOT saying that ignorance is a better way. What I am saying is that a little knowledge is a dangerous and irresponsible thing.

I just am angry about this. Maybe I've had enough...

P.S. I am not judging anyone. However....I think it's ironic that we get THREE different estimates if we're getting work done on our homes. But ONE professional (or "friend") says something about a particular facet of our personalities and that's it. We have that.

Rant over and thank you for letting me go on....

[jacky8807]

yeah I do think so. I was reading something but forgive me it's early, that the DSm has more than a few new "disorders" that are just ludicrous. I can't remember what they are now but when I was reading it i was like you have
GOT to be kidding me.
yes of course MI exists there is no doubt. but not every behaviour in the world should be pathologized

[MickeyCheeky]

Sometimes I think of this as well.. often there's a need to "label" everything, not only in the MI field. It's probably done to be more specific in the treatments, but it can get out of hand and create problems. I understand your feelings

Also the DSM gets changed, new 'disorders'are added, old ones sometimes removed - it's not exactly a precise science.

[Takeshi]

Below is an excerpt from a blog post I was reading the other day.

Dr. Lieberman then expounds on the distinction between a symptom and a diagnosis, and tells us:

“It’s a constellation of symptoms occurring in a specific pattern and conforming to an observed and potentially validated condition that defines a diagnosis.”

Well there are two responses that could be made. Firstly, the pattern of symptoms in psychiatric “diagnosis” is anything but specific. Apart from the vagueness and inherent subjectivity of the individual items, the polythetic feature (three out of five, four out of six, etc.) renders the term “specific” quite meaningless. Secondly, note the term “potentially validated” – an acknowledgement that psychiatric diagnoses aren’t validated yet, but perhaps will be validated, any decade now.

This is the stellar example of what experts in the field say about the illnesses.

It's been advertised that way, and this is the truth at the same time. It's all part of the big economic food chain.

I look at the different diagnosis or "labels" have you as being merely a guideline and and nothing more.

What I do have a problem with more than that though is how these so called "professionals" seem to assume that there is this ideal way that a person should behave or thing they should do with their life like everybody is wired the same way, and seek to want to change the person into doing what is "socially acceptable" rather than how to be happy.

Who cares if somebody has their "own way" of being happy and doesn't want to do the standard things imposed upon us such as going to school, going to college, getting married, having children, ETC. As long as somebody isn't hurting anybody else or infringing on their liberties, than they should be allowed to do whatever they want; telling them otherwise is merely oppression and nothing more.

I think if one really seeks to learn about their so called psychiatric "illnesses" and how they affect one as a person, it's better for the person to be looked at on as an individual and to find out how one's perceived "issues" affect their ideal form of happiness and go from there rather than placing that person in a group and treating all members of a said group in a similar manner.

Than again, I'm no psychologist; I'm merely somebody who has endured mental illness most of my life and as such, consider myself qualified in such a way that most psychiatrists or psychologists couldn't be considering most of them don't ever go through what we do.

[Cyllya]

For reference, countries that use the DSM normally use a diagnostic manual based on the ICD 10 for non-psychiatry conditions.
Here's a big list of "new disorders" added to the ICD 10 just last October. The so-called "new disorders" in the DSM are usually that kind of thing.

I've got a few beefs with the psychiatric diagnostic system, but having too many "labels" isn't one of them.

• The different conditions are all based purely on symptom clusters or, worse yet, observable behaviors; an objective biomedical definition of each condition doesn't exist. (The symptom labels have some use, so if they fixed this, they'd probably end up with more labels.)
• Doctors seem to have less understanding of psychiatric symptoms than other conditions' symptoms. (For example, if you go to a doctor complaining of a cough, they'll ask details like dry or wet cough, does stuff come up, what color is the stuff, etc, because different kinds of coughs are symptoms of different conditions.)
• The diagnostic criteria for some conditions doesn't necessarily reflect the actual problems faced by the people with that condition, yet researchers often still try to use it to judge whether treatment is effective.
• People who don't fit any category nicely (or the doctors' stereotypes of each condition) often have trouble getting treatment even if they clearly have issues
• Questionable categorizing potentially messing with understanding and contributing to stigma. What reason is there to think things like BPD or OCPD are problems with your "personality" whereas mood disorders are not considered a "personality" problem.

These are mostly due to the relatively early stage of research that psychiatry is in, but maybe they should keep that limitation in mind when using the DSM....

Some people (talking about laypeople now, not professionals), treat the DSM (or vague lists based on it) like it's some cute little personality quiz or something. No, psychiatry doesn't think you have OCD because you're tidy, and it doesn't think you have a paraphilic disorder because you like kinky sex.

[reb569]

I think the worst part of the whole labeling issue is the fact that in order to bill insurance, a therapist, psychologist or psychiatrist has to use a diagnosis code. They may not be convinced that is the disorder you are struggling with, but based on your history and their observations, they have roughly an hour to put you in a diagnosis bucket. My therapist has billed to my insurance with a GAD diagnosis. I actually have CPTSD, which of course isn't in the DSM-5. But at the time I started seeing her, GAD was the closest fit.

My daughter was diagnosed Bipolar 2 with IP. Her OP Pdoc isn't convinced she's Bipolar. He continues to work with her to really determine whether she is Bipolar, whether anti-depressants cause her to seem Bipolar, or if she truly is MDD.

I think there should be an interim code that MI professionals can use for say up to 5 sessions that avoids the label, to be used for billing.

[Fuzzybear]

No. Labels can be a load of bs, a "convenience" for the "doctor" / "therapist" and extremely harmful

[systemfailure]

Originally Posted by prefabsprout

Also the DSM gets changed, new 'disorders'are added, old ones sometimes removed - it's not exactly a precise science.

There is no science to it, its a guessing game which can get very expensive in terms of money and sanity

[Christina86]

Labels should only be on items - like food, clothing and other things IMO!

But labels DO sometimes help. Even if they're annoying as hell.

I cannot be trusted to not find a new label for myself... but that's more a function of my black/white thinking and liking most things in boxes (even though I've never met someone who completely fit my idea of a "box"!)

[Sunflower123]

If I remember the last DSM manual I saw, it's the size of an encyclopedia. That's a bit much.

[systemfailure]

even pyschiatrists admit the DSM doesnt work for diagnostics, I wonder what they make first the meds or the illness ?

[Sunflower123]

Originally Posted by systemfailure

even pyschiatrists admit the DSM doesnt work for diagnostics, I wonder what they make first the meds or the illness ?

Ha! I know you didn't mean for that to be funny but it tickled me.

[vishva8kumara]

Originally Posted by systemfailure

even pyschiatrists admit the DSM doesnt work for diagnostics, I wonder what they make first the meds or the illness ?

Actually, there are few examples out there to prove this point. Some medicines such as Prozac for an example is made for entirely different purposes and later tried for other purposes but finally some patients suggested that it helps them with their depression, so it was labelled as an antidepressant.

True story. Read about that..

[vishva8kumara]

Actually, technically, not all mental disorders need to be treated or 'fixed'. That is something what my sister who is a PDoc says sometimes.

A mental disorder should only be rectified if that affects the persons day-to-day life in a bad way. If a person can lead a fulfilling and productive life while self-managing their symptoms, it should not be rectified if the patient does not need to be fixed.

Let's say there is a person having auditory hallucinations and they write poems taking inspiration from that and they are not unhappy about that symptom, and can lead a productive life. Nobody has to intervene and fix such a person if they do not wish to be fixed or causing trouble to other people.

And on the other hand, most of those symptoms in the DSM has to persist for over 2 weeks to be considered a 'symptom'. Just a symptom or two appears out of the blue just once may not need alarm.