Here’s something I’ve wondered about, especially since the advent of social media: are the rates of mental illness in the general population actually on the increase, as the statistics insist? Or have we simply become too free in our use of psychiatric labels?
Or some combination of the two, I suppose.
So I was pleased to encounter this discussion in The Guardian, contributed by an Oxford psychology professor:
Are we really overdiagnosing mental illness?
ADHD is often cited as an example of a trend towards excessive diagnosis. I confess that I have noticed a sharp uptick in the number of people I’ve run into who now label themselves as ADHD— more often than not, based on something they’ve read, watched on TV, or heard discussed on a podcast.
Surprisingly, most have been adults over 40, including some in their 70s, who have arrived at the diagnosis without benefit of a formal evaluation by a clinician.
“I first heard about ADHD on a podcast,” one told me, “and I did some reading and talked to some friends and it became obvious to me that unrecognized ADHD was what had been bothering me for most of my life.”
Was she correct? Maybe, maybe not. Without the input of someone trained to diagnose, who had been allowed to examine her and the evidence she presented, I doubt anyone could know for certain.
Diagnosis is technically differential diagnosis, a “systematic investigation to distinguish a specific mental health disorder from others with similar symptoms.” It follows a prescribed method for evaluating potential candidates to explain the patient’s symptoms, and therefore serve as the basis for a treatment plan — which could include medication.
It’s a detective story of sorts. Best left to professionals.
In this case, I couldn’t see where this lady’s self diagnosis was doing any harm. She wasn’t seeking medication. She was simply using ADHD as a way to understand some of the mysteries of her past behavior. That included a lot of substance use, by the way, from which she was now in recovery.
Honestly? I suspect she may not have suffered from ADHD at all. But I wasn’t really in a position to judge.
