4 ms·
I think there are at least two major threads to this, both important: (1) Is there meaningfully distinct and circumscribable medical condition that is diagnosa
by da39a3ee 3y ago
I think there are at least two major threads to this, both important:
(1) Is there meaningfully distinct and circumscribable medical condition that is diagnosable and merits its own name, and merits people being told they "have X", in the same way as they "have" a viral infection.
(2) If there is, then is the set of people in practice diagnosed with X in society anything close to the "correct" set of people under (1)?
(1) is controversial, and even if (1) is true, the answer to (2) is clearly "no". So even if you believe in (1) then in practice, as a phenomenon of our society, it is nonsense: a large proportion of those diagnosed believing incorrectly that they "have" a certain medical condition.
Another way of asking it is: clearly humans vary along cognitive/psychological dimensions. What exactly would make you say "Oh, there's a disease", rather than "Oh, there's variation"?
Are you at least in agreement that large areas of modern medical psychology / psychiatry are bullshit? Diagnosing people with "sex addiction" and stuff like that? Presumably you are. That makes it a bit easier to see how society can have slid into the mistake it's made with "ADHD" and "Dyslexia".
- piva00 3y agoI believe I agree with your arguments, at least in the case of ADHD it's only a "disorder" due to the expectations of society on productivity, consistency, etc., as an individual if I didn't have societal pressures on my output (both at work as in home chores, etc.) I'd say I wouldn't be impacted at all by living with this. Actually the opposite, there are some benefits I get from living with ADHD, the main issue is living with it in a society that expects a very different functioning than what I'm naturally inclined to.