Aren’t we all a little crazy? Well according to the DSM, we actually are.
As the world progressed through time, our ability to define and discover mental illnesses did to. In 1952, mental illnesses started receiving a lot more attention for their severity, contributing to the first manual on mental disorders: DSM. DSM has since been used world-wide to determine disorders. However, the use and reliance on this manual has led to thousands of false diagnostics.
The main problem with the DSM is the fact that as it grew in volume to match modern societies and their new methods, it also grew in the amount of symptoms and disorders counted within. This has resulted in many false diagnoses due to the fact that patients often are diagnosed with more than one symptom and disorder at the same time since most symptoms of one disorder are also found in another. For instance, nowadays anxiety disorders and depression are often associated together. Patients who go in to get their anxiety checked or controlled could come out of an appointment with a depression diagnostic and anti-depressants when they never had depression to start with. This can be due to a psychiatric mistake or more often than not, is due to drug companies trying to make a profit or the person trying to gain disability benefits such as better insurance, claims, less work etc. It may be unethical to do this, but our society has grown towards a capitalist view where money is the only thing that matters and doing anything no matter the cost is alright.
The assessments used to determine a person’s disorder are often imprecise and based on assumptions as we still have not figured out the genes involved in a disorder. Even if we did know the genes, disorders can be created as a result of the environment and experiences a person goes through. For instance, if we had two people with the same genetic disposition for a mental illness, their symptoms can manifest differently as a consequence of their experience. Making it harder to determine a diagnostic. At this point merely naming the mental illness is the only option for a psychiatrist as they have to stay broad about conditions without more knowledge, which complicates an effective treatment for the patient. This often leads to poor reactions to medications often leading to several different medication trials, ineffective help overcoming the illness and possibly never solving it.
With the bad reputation of psychologists, more people are opting for self-help thanks to the internet. Sites such as WebMD and psychologytoday are tools at our disposal with free diagnoses of our conditions to use whenever we want to without having to spend money on a psychiatrist who could diagnosis you wrong. This self-help, unfortunately, often leads to improper treatments without proper medical help which can worsen symptoms.
In today’s society we are all deemed a little crazy according to the DSM, and we can’t do much about it. Thankfully, more often than not that craziness is normal and not in need of treatment.
