> Almost every psychiatric diagnosis is problematic, and articles questioning any's validity can be dug up
That’s true, but this seems one of the more problematic ones. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder....
Because of that, I don’t think it is problematic for anybody to say its controversial whether this disorder really exists.
This goes a bit further, though, claiming it probably doesn’t exist.
IMO, that isn’t saying the patients are faking having problems. It’s saying we don’t know much of mental illnesses, and that creating this label doesn’t help the world.
I think most in the field will acknowledge the first part of that statement. That’s why this is called a disorder (“a functional abnormality or disturbance”) and not a disease, a term we reserve for cases where we know what causes it.
As to the second part: I think a new label only makes sense if its definition groups people together not only because they have similar abnormalities, but also because they are helped by similar treatment. That’s very hard to judge for disorders, because “doesn’t respond to the standard treatment” can easily lead to a conclusion “diagnosis was incorrect”. That also is what those writing the DSM struggle with.
A problem, though, is that patients prefer hearing “you have foo” to “we don’t know”, even if there is no difference in treatment between the two.
I think that’s why those claiming “most people claiming to have foo don’t” (which I would say currently is true for such things as autism and ADHD), the stronger “foo is rarer than diagnosed” or the even stronger “foo doesn’t exist” are met with much resistance.
But again: I think the last two are statements about the state of psychiatry as a science, not about patients.
That’s true, but this seems one of the more problematic ones. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder....
Because of that, I don’t think it is problematic for anybody to say its controversial whether this disorder really exists.
This goes a bit further, though, claiming it probably doesn’t exist.
IMO, that isn’t saying the patients are faking having problems. It’s saying we don’t know much of mental illnesses, and that creating this label doesn’t help the world.
I think most in the field will acknowledge the first part of that statement. That’s why this is called a disorder (“a functional abnormality or disturbance”) and not a disease, a term we reserve for cases where we know what causes it.
As to the second part: I think a new label only makes sense if its definition groups people together not only because they have similar abnormalities, but also because they are helped by similar treatment. That’s very hard to judge for disorders, because “doesn’t respond to the standard treatment” can easily lead to a conclusion “diagnosis was incorrect”. That also is what those writing the DSM struggle with.
A problem, though, is that patients prefer hearing “you have foo” to “we don’t know”, even if there is no difference in treatment between the two.
I think that’s why those claiming “most people claiming to have foo don’t” (which I would say currently is true for such things as autism and ADHD), the stronger “foo is rarer than diagnosed” or the even stronger “foo doesn’t exist” are met with much resistance.
But again: I think the last two are statements about the state of psychiatry as a science, not about patients.