Re: How Many Ridiculous "Disorders" Do YOU Suffer From

It's true that if there is a weak part of western medicine it is in the field of psychiatry, due to many factors, not the least of which is that individual persons are so vastly different in how they react to the world around them and also to any intervention of what is perceived as a disruption in "normal" function. The DSM is chock full of labels and disorders, for the purpose of classification ease. You'll notice if you flip through it that most of the disorders have certain numbers of criteria, like 5 out of 7 of the following, or one major and one minor, etc. It's not the most scientific way of doing things, granted, and of course it's hard to argue that someone is or is not depressed because they don't meet enough criteria for the clinical diagnosis. However, it is done in this fashion in an effort to standardize a very complex system. It is more descriptive to use the term ADD as opposed to saying "my kid doesn't pay attention" because there are designated criteria such as having difficulties in more than one setting and unable to finish more than one task at at time. It's not perfect at all, not by a long shot, but it is there for a reason, not just because drug companies are inventing disorders. I actually think that western medicine as a whole has gone into a trend of overdiagnosing, due to multiple reasons - malpractice, patient autonomy, covering your ass, in addition to zealous drug companies who are trying to make a buck. However, it bears noticing that most of the treatment for DSM disorders are behavioral therapy, cognitive therapy, group therapy, social supports, and NOT pharmaceuticals primarily. Also, in the cases where drugs are encouraged as treatment, i.e. schizophrenia, depression, anxiety disorders, there are in conjunction with therapy, not just take 2 and call me in morning. The intent of these drug therapies are to allow the person to overcome their issues enough to seek therapy and help themselves. Anyone who has ever met a floridly psychotic person knows that most of the time "alternative therapies" can only help so much.
Going back to the DSM thing, the problem is the same for webmd and all the other sites that people can now access themselves and search for a disease to blame. "I have that! I have that too!" There probably are some people with severe cases of very strange and specific disorders such as inability to do math, but it's much easier for people to blame little Johnny's math problems on something he can't help than to actually sit down and work through it. Tweet