ABSTRACT
Some mental health professionals tend to make diagnoses by classifying symptoms within different categories, based on a selection of symptoms or behaviours. Making a diagnosis helps a doctor to assess what treatment is needed and to predict what is likely to happen. It can also be a relief to the client with a mental health problem to be able to put a name to what is wrong. However, each client's experience of mental distress is unique and it can be misread, especially if there are cultural, social or religious differences between doctor (or therapist) and client. Different doctors may give the same client completely different diagnoses. Simply focusing on the symptoms or on identifying the symptoms to make a psychiatric diagnosis can mean that not enough attention is paid to the client as a whole. It fails to take into account the way in which personal, social, family and work experiences contribute to the development and continuation of mental health problems. Medical diagnosis may therefore be too simplistic or mechanical in the description and understanding of the person's symptoms or problems (Lam 2004). If a diagnosis becomes a stigmatising label (e.g. bipolar disorder), it can be damaging, demoralising and confusing for the client with mental distress, which in turn may affect his or her engagement with and response to treatment.
