It is a case of misunderstanding. When you are diagnosed
with a mental illness, it feels like a criticism of your intelligence and brain. What few understand, is that to be diagnosed as mentally ill, the doctors use your behavior and communication dialog to diagnose you.
With the new DSM5, there are revised categories, with revised symptoms. In a previous entry, I thought homosexuality is no longer diagnosed as a mental illness, but I was wrong. It is now classified as Gender Dysphoria. There are also parameters for about 10 personality disorders. There are only two for bipolar when there used to be three. So, not much has changed after all.
To get back on track about behavior, there is still no one-test way of diagnosing a mental illness. The doctors and staff still base their findings on how you behave and what your dialog is like. They also use cues that are present in conversation to categorize you. Another sad part about being diagnosed with a mental illness, is that the diagnosis is for life, so the patient needs to learn how to express concerns to their treatment team, for the best possible outcome for all included.
On a tangent, before HIPPA, my grandmother and mother would call my psychiatrist and tell stories that biased my treatment. Even though they are gone now, they wouldn't be allowed to do that today. Treatment is private and the staff that work in mental health keep confidentiality practices. Only those you approve of can voice their concerns and even then, most of the time the ones that you approve of can face an uphill battle to be connected to an individual treatment. It is an issue of the privacy of the patient, not the concerns of the family.
But, diagnosis is all about behavior. The DNA testing available to the mentally ill now, screens for 25 different medicines, to see if you can tolerate the medicine. But, still no DNA testing for diagnostic purposes alone. Yet, the medical field is getting close to such testing. Unfortunately, the testing is not available to the general public yet, probably due to the costs involved.
with a mental illness, it feels like a criticism of your intelligence and brain. What few understand, is that to be diagnosed as mentally ill, the doctors use your behavior and communication dialog to diagnose you.
With the new DSM5, there are revised categories, with revised symptoms. In a previous entry, I thought homosexuality is no longer diagnosed as a mental illness, but I was wrong. It is now classified as Gender Dysphoria. There are also parameters for about 10 personality disorders. There are only two for bipolar when there used to be three. So, not much has changed after all.
To get back on track about behavior, there is still no one-test way of diagnosing a mental illness. The doctors and staff still base their findings on how you behave and what your dialog is like. They also use cues that are present in conversation to categorize you. Another sad part about being diagnosed with a mental illness, is that the diagnosis is for life, so the patient needs to learn how to express concerns to their treatment team, for the best possible outcome for all included.
On a tangent, before HIPPA, my grandmother and mother would call my psychiatrist and tell stories that biased my treatment. Even though they are gone now, they wouldn't be allowed to do that today. Treatment is private and the staff that work in mental health keep confidentiality practices. Only those you approve of can voice their concerns and even then, most of the time the ones that you approve of can face an uphill battle to be connected to an individual treatment. It is an issue of the privacy of the patient, not the concerns of the family.
But, diagnosis is all about behavior. The DNA testing available to the mentally ill now, screens for 25 different medicines, to see if you can tolerate the medicine. But, still no DNA testing for diagnostic purposes alone. Yet, the medical field is getting close to such testing. Unfortunately, the testing is not available to the general public yet, probably due to the costs involved.