> It is _very_ difficult to accurate diagnose these disorders and then half the time people don't believe you anyway. Fair enough. Which do you think is worse

> It is _very_ difficult to accurate diagnose these disorders and then half the time people don't believe you anyway. Fair enough. Which do you think is worse -- a false positive or a false negative? I ask because this diagnostic category has plenty of both. I would want to be very sure about a depression diagnosis before assigning it, especially to young person with little life experience. These questionable diagnoses can change the direction of a person's life, possibly cause him to think of himself as permanently handicapped, brain-damaged, after a spell of the blues followed by a superficial diagnosis from a "professional". Because of how little we know about depression, most diagnoses are in a gray area. It's not like there's a blood test -- and if you've read the posts in this thread, you know by now that there isn't a blood test, there's only a press release.