ABSTRACT

Psychiatric diagnoses such as depression, anxiety, autism and ADHD have today become ever-present in our conversations about our problems: they operate as powerful categories in the social and health systems of modern welfare states, and they have entered public media and popular culture. The concepts of illness and disorder – and the diagnoses with which we designate our problems – are no longer just medical, biological and psychological concepts, but also bureaucratic, social and administrative entities (Rosenberg, 2007, p. 5). McGann goes so far as to conclude that “diagnoses have become part of how we make sense of ourselves, each other, and the world” (McGann, 2011, p. 343). The purpose of this book is to describe and analyse this phenomenon, which I refer to as the development of diagnostic cultures.