A diagnosis of a mental illness is just a clustering of symptoms. There nothing with makes one clustering inherently more “legitimate” than another.
You could call clusters of symptoms published in the DSM-V legitimate if you believe that the authority of the APA can give something legitimacy.
You could also say that tests for diagnosis that have high sensitivity and specificity where different doctors are going to give the same diagnosis, give that diagnosis legitimacy. Non expert diagnosis by someone who reads a Wikipedia page likely doesn’t score well for that metric.
Yeah the question of how we decide what we call legitimate is of interest to me as well. Apparently (according to a wikipedia page that says at the top it needs cleanup) there’s some debate over whether SCT is a real disorder, and I’m not sure what the criteria would be among its critics.
I could try phrasing it in a couple of ways: “How justified are we in treating this group of symptoms as a cluster?”. Do well accepted symptom clusters like depression point to larger causes, or at least narrow it down to a few possibilities?
Are diagnoses “we can tell from [symptoms] you have [cluster] which we define by presence of [symptoms]” type tautologies or can you get any information out of them that you didn’t already put in?
“What is a cognitive tempo, what does it mean for one to be sluggish?” The more clearly you can reduce it to brain function, the more “legitimate” it might be?
Okay, suppose I decide everyone with the symptoms “has trouble coordinating colors, picking up distinct sounds over other sounds, remembering faces” has “Feidlimid’s Processing Disorder”, which I just made up. Is there a sense in which “FPD” or being an “indigo child” are less legitimate than “ADD?” More reason to think a “real diagnosis’s” traits are related to each other?
This question is less rhetorical than it probably sounds, I can remember venting to a psychiatrist that “depression is a description not an explanation and we still don’t know what’s wrong with me do we?”
Apparently (according to a wikipedia page that says at the top it needs cleanup) there’s some debate over whether SCT is a real disorder, and I’m not sure what the criteria would be among its critics.
In that debate a disorder is something that reduces effectiveness in daily life for people who are diagnosed with it. Fixing a disorder should improve people’s daily lives.
“Real” also means that it’s not just an edge case of an existing disorder that’s already in the book.
You also want the concept to pass some sanity checks. People diagnosed with the recently made up disorder of “internet addiction” for example didn’t use the internet more than people without “internet addiction”.
“What is a cognitive tempo, what does it mean for one to be sluggish?” The more clearly you can reduce it to brain function, the more “legitimate” it might be?
For that idea of “legitimate” our current way of diagnosing mental illnesses isn’t legitimate. We made the categories we use today at a time before we knew much about the brain. Different people have different views about causes and the current system of labeling purposefully avoids focusing of causation. The DSM doesn’t cite any studies that investigated real world causation to justify it’s disease categories.
Are diagnoses “we can tell from [symptoms] you have [cluster] which we define by presence of [symptoms]” type tautologies or can you get any information out of them that you didn’t already put in?
In practice that means that a psychologist gets payed by an insurance company to treat the disorder. Psychologist don’t get payed for fixes something that’s not in the DSM.
Drug are also tested on whether or not they treat a disease or disorder. Drugs only get FDA approval when the improve disorders.
If you take a drug to be happy and improve something that isn’t a disorder that’s illegal. If you take a drug to fix something that’s recognized as a disorder, you are within the bounds of the law. At least that’s the general idea.
I can remember venting to a psychiatrist that “depression is a description not an explanation and we still don’t know what’s wrong with me do we?”
Yes. But it’s not clear that an explanation centered approach is helpful anyway. You don’t get any benefit from having an explanation for being messed up. It might even be harmful because of self identity issues.
Humans behave in a way to validate their self image. If your self image is that you are an introvert, that reduces the likelihood that you will do things that you consider extroverted behavior.
There are studies where teachers were told randomly that some of their students are smart and other aren’t. That’s enough to make those students who teachers believe to be smart perform better as people live up to expectations.
I wonder if there’s been research into the details of what the teachers did—more praise, more focused instruction, higher standards, more encouragement.....
And of course, whether the research has been replicated.
And of course, whether the research has been replicated.
There are ethics problems with getting the study design approved again so no. But as far as I understand there a larger body of research that indicates that expectations have a large influence on behavior. I never digged into the actual papers, so if someone spent more time looking into the subject, I would also happy to hear about it.
My first guess would be “more charitable readings of their work”. What’s evidence of missing the point in someone you think of as an idiot might be evidence of a creative solution in someone you think of as a genius, and kids’ answers are often ambiguous.
What do you mean with “legitimate”?
A diagnosis of a mental illness is just a clustering of symptoms. There nothing with makes one clustering inherently more “legitimate” than another.
You could call clusters of symptoms published in the DSM-V legitimate if you believe that the authority of the APA can give something legitimacy.
You could also say that tests for diagnosis that have high sensitivity and specificity where different doctors are going to give the same diagnosis, give that diagnosis legitimacy. Non expert diagnosis by someone who reads a Wikipedia page likely doesn’t score well for that metric.
Yeah the question of how we decide what we call legitimate is of interest to me as well. Apparently (according to a wikipedia page that says at the top it needs cleanup) there’s some debate over whether SCT is a real disorder, and I’m not sure what the criteria would be among its critics.
I could try phrasing it in a couple of ways: “How justified are we in treating this group of symptoms as a cluster?”. Do well accepted symptom clusters like depression point to larger causes, or at least narrow it down to a few possibilities?
Are diagnoses “we can tell from [symptoms] you have [cluster] which we define by presence of [symptoms]” type tautologies or can you get any information out of them that you didn’t already put in?
“What is a cognitive tempo, what does it mean for one to be sluggish?” The more clearly you can reduce it to brain function, the more “legitimate” it might be?
Okay, suppose I decide everyone with the symptoms “has trouble coordinating colors, picking up distinct sounds over other sounds, remembering faces” has “Feidlimid’s Processing Disorder”, which I just made up. Is there a sense in which “FPD” or being an “indigo child” are less legitimate than “ADD?” More reason to think a “real diagnosis’s” traits are related to each other?
This question is less rhetorical than it probably sounds, I can remember venting to a psychiatrist that “depression is a description not an explanation and we still don’t know what’s wrong with me do we?”
In that debate a disorder is something that reduces effectiveness in daily life for people who are diagnosed with it. Fixing a disorder should improve people’s daily lives. “Real” also means that it’s not just an edge case of an existing disorder that’s already in the book.
You also want the concept to pass some sanity checks. People diagnosed with the recently made up disorder of “internet addiction” for example didn’t use the internet more than people without “internet addiction”.
For that idea of “legitimate” our current way of diagnosing mental illnesses isn’t legitimate. We made the categories we use today at a time before we knew much about the brain. Different people have different views about causes and the current system of labeling purposefully avoids focusing of causation. The DSM doesn’t cite any studies that investigated real world causation to justify it’s disease categories.
In practice that means that a psychologist gets payed by an insurance company to treat the disorder. Psychologist don’t get payed for fixes something that’s not in the DSM.
Drug are also tested on whether or not they treat a disease or disorder. Drugs only get FDA approval when the improve disorders.
If you take a drug to be happy and improve something that isn’t a disorder that’s illegal. If you take a drug to fix something that’s recognized as a disorder, you are within the bounds of the law. At least that’s the general idea.
Yes. But it’s not clear that an explanation centered approach is helpful anyway. You don’t get any benefit from having an explanation for being messed up. It might even be harmful because of self identity issues.
Thanks, clarifies things some, but I don’t get why “messed up for [reason]” would be any worse for one’s identity than “messed up”.
Humans behave in a way to validate their self image. If your self image is that you are an introvert, that reduces the likelihood that you will do things that you consider extroverted behavior.
There are studies where teachers were told randomly that some of their students are smart and other aren’t. That’s enough to make those students who teachers believe to be smart perform better as people live up to expectations.
I wonder if there’s been research into the details of what the teachers did—more praise, more focused instruction, higher standards, more encouragement.....
And of course, whether the research has been replicated.
There are ethics problems with getting the study design approved again so no. But as far as I understand there a larger body of research that indicates that expectations have a large influence on behavior. I never digged into the actual papers, so if someone spent more time looking into the subject, I would also happy to hear about it.
My first guess would be “more charitable readings of their work”. What’s evidence of missing the point in someone you think of as an idiot might be evidence of a creative solution in someone you think of as a genius, and kids’ answers are often ambiguous.