ABSTRACT
Parents need help to understand what “diagnosing” means when it comes to so-called mental disorders and to the mental disorder paradigm as undergirded by the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association and the International Classification of Diseases. A mental disorder is a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual and that is associated with present distress or disability or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom. Diagnosis in medicine refers to the process of understanding how a person’s symptoms relate to an underlying disease process. A lawyer helps his client without also diagnosing him or labeling him. An accountant helps his client without diagnosing him or labeling him. The diagnosis is the gateway not only to taking antidepressants or other treatments for a “disease”; it is also the gateway to a certain kind of understanding of oneself and one’s suffering.
