Comment by mindslight

All models are wrong, some are useful. Of course it has some utility, otherwise it would drop out of use on its own. The problem with big catchall symptom based diagnoses are what they drive focus towards and away from. I get that the scientific process has to start somewhere, by putting similar things in a bag, before it can tease out mechanisms and groupings. But when such simplistic models remain how doctors communicate with patients, it crowds out more nuanced understanding. Like even the word "spectrum", trying to add some depth to the pop culture model, is really just a fancy word for a single scalar.