On Diagnosis

The problem with diagnosis is not that it is inaccessible to some. It’s that its fundamental ideology is broken.

we treat MH labels like they’re neat little boxes when they’re actually incredibly subjective and based largely on whether you got on with the psychiatrist that day

Personality disorders are, obviously, the worst case here; consider the labels of “antisocial”, “narcissistic” or “paranoid”. In any other medical field, these would have been subject to euphemism treadmill: as one word develops a negative connotation, others are coined to replace it. Words like “r—rd” and “sp–tic” are now generally avoided in a medical context due to their offensive connotations, but the same cannot be done in mental health because the negative connotations they carry are the point. Mental healthcare is one of the few spheres in which a doctor can legitimately diagnose you as an asshole.

Back to Madness