“Don’t tell me what is going on with me, help me understand the how of me.” AJ, a 24 year old male.
photo by Maike Salway http://www.mikesalway.com.au/2009/01/13/sommersby-falls-photo-shoot
With the release of the proposed draft revisions (version 5) to DSM disorders and criteria, new questions have arisen about psychiatric diagnosis. Articles like the very in-depth analysis by Louis Menand in The New Yorker wonder whether or not the classification of mental disorders doesn’t pathologize the vicissitudes of human emotional expression. Jonah Lehrer’s recent piece in the NYTimes adds another element to the discourse about what is diagnosis: what if mental illness, like depression, has value? I would like to suggest another angle to this over-due debate: Diagnosis is a process, a fluid and mutable motion between body, mind, other people, culture and the environment. A diagnosis should not be construed as a territory with fixed boundaries nor a rigid categorical definition. A viewing lens can assist in the identification of a Downey Woodpecker but you can’t learn anything about the creature until you observe it flying and interacting with the trees. A psychological enterprise should always engage with a person’s process, and should aim to assist a person in the discovery of how all the pieces of their life come together. This work relies on experience and training, as well as science and art. It also depends on a deep understanding of the natural, evolutionary world in which we are all embedded.
Ordinary Earth ™ 