Posted by Sean on October 4, 1999, at 12:28:46
In reply to Labeling and diagnosis, posted by marg on October 3, 1999, at 17:14:46
> TO label or not to label>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> I am in an ambnormal Psych class and we have a debate tommorow and would like some input about labeling for diagnosis I need to hear more for those who are against labeling and the reasons why.. I hope I would have your permisiion to use your opinion and rational in a debate... thank youI'm neither "pro" or "con" to labeling. I see the
diagnostic system as part of a long heritage in
Western medicine which tends to look at differences
between things rather than similarities. This has
benefits and disadvantages.As for myself, I honestly don't care what my diagnosis
or label is. My subjective experience of depression
and mania is my own and though it has similarities
to others, it is integrated with the fabric of
my entire life and thus belongs only to me.Communicating with people at this board has really
shown me how different we all are, so two people
with the same diagnosis are going to react differently
to medications, have different triggers and life
stressors. And yet the final common physiological
pathway will be very similar: sleep disturbances
and intense shifts of mood. In a very strange way,
I feel more understood by people than anybody
else!Diagnoses are part of the science of Nosology and
thus change over time. And yet I think they serve
a valuable purpose in terms of dicussing particula
constellations of symptomoly. A schizophrenic person
is very different from a person with panic disorder,
and yet there are certain affinities between
them (as any person who has experienced derealization
during as massive panic attack can attest!)From a therapeutic standpoint, there may be some
value to a person classifying his or herself as
having some disorder called "X". This makes one's
experience seem like any other condition in medical
science.On the other hand, a person could harm him/herself by
identifying too closely with a "label". But my
intuition is that such a shallow definition of
the self is not likely to stand the test of time
and will be very temporary.ANother apsect of "labels" follows naturally from
pharmacological dissection. When certain drugs
work on one condition and not another, there seems
to be a reasonable basis for categorizing along
putative lines of one neurological system or
another.And in the "meta-meta" sense, we are talking about
language here. If we do not differentiate and label,
than how do we talk about something? I remember the
days before I learned how to distinguish the different
conifers in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Before I
learned about the differences, they were all just
"pine trees". Now I see Red Fir, Hemlocks, Ponderosa
Pines, Western Junipers, and many others. The
forest has become a very different experience for
me because I have learned to identify and "label"
the trees. The Linnean (latin binomial) system of
naming living things is also part of the
history of Western science, which despite its
shortcomings, is on the brink of really nailing
down some major diseases (like cancer). All the
New Age crtitiques of "allopathic medicine" will
sound very shrill within 10 years or so. There
is a value of understanding that labels give us.I guess I'm for labels that are accurate and not
gross, dehumanizing generalizations. I don't walk
around thinking of myself as a victim of condition
"X". No human can be reduced a few words. The
problem is with society's need to do this and
the stigma of mental illness. Nobody thinks about
"labels" when we talk about cancer types, diabetes,
or losing a limb in a car accident. All of these
are things that "happen" to a particular person
who is seen as an intact entity engulfed in a
painful experience. With mental illness, however,
there is this idea that no such intact person
exists within the illness, that they *are* the
illness.Oddly, I don't know anybody with a mental illness
who thinks of this way. And the contributions to
our collective humanity in the arts and sciences
by person having affective disorders should serve
as some sort of indicator of the underlying vitality
of the *individual* inside the "label".Sean.
poster:Sean
thread:12497
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991001/msgs/12528.html