The phenomenon of overdiagnosis in mental health is linked to the tendency to perform normal pathological behaviors that involve only a discomfort that cannot be classified as a disorder, this occurs in psychiatry and generates not only diagnostic errors, but also the use of drugs when not really are necessary.
Diagnosis has long been one of the most problematic aspects of psychiatry, due to several factors. One is that the diagnosis is usually very subjective, because it is the psychiatrist, based on his observation and with inaccurate instruments, who determines whether or not a person suffers from a disorder, in these conditions errors are very common, which in turn leads to overdiagnosis.
- The most accepted reference instrument is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
- Which in turn makes it a group of psychiatrists.
- Almost all Americans.
- Definition of disturbances and whether or not they are included in the manual.
- It’s by vote.
- Its first version included only 60 issues.
- The latter has more than 500.
“He who knows only medicine, neither medicine knows” – Joseph de Letamendi-
Everything points to that yes, there is an overdiagnosis in the area of mental health, if we look at the latest version of the DSM, experts say that we could place 70% of the population in a mental disorder and that, therefore, 70% should receive some form of medication.
DSM-V includes some suspicious disorders that have been severely questioned, even by professionals. For example, there is a condition called attenuated psychotic syndrome. The DSM specifically states that “this syndrome is characterized by psychotic symptoms that are below a complete psychosis threshold. “
It would be like saying that someone has characteristics that make them have a good chance of developing psychosis in the future. There’s no psychosis right now, but the person would still be taking antipsychotics.
In fact, we could all have this disease. Most of us have been through a situation in our life where we have been “on the verge of going crazy”, but nothing has happened. Treat a disorder that may occur in the future or not? It’s stupid. It is like giving medication for high blood pressure to the child of a hypertensive person because that person is at risk of developing the same disease.
Another example, among the many we can give, is that, thanks to DSM-V, if a person feels extremely sad for more than a week, after the death of a loved one, that person can be diagnosed with depression.
The boundaries between health and disease in the mind cannot be defined very precisely. We need to understand that he? Normal is a very subjective concept and generally associated with a specific context. We must also remember that it is characteristic of the human being to have a certain discomfort, because to live is to go through uncertainty.
We will never achieve everything we want and never achieve a perfect balance. There is also a degree of unease that exists in all of us because of the existence of death, and that is a brutal imposition. No one escapes at least dosis. de frustration at circumstances that cannot be changed, and each has a certain degree of selfishness or malice in him.
It is reasonable for us to go through certain phases where we feel sad, or other moments marked by anxiety, for some psychoanalysts it is perfectly normal that we have up to three episodes of psychosis in our lives if we face a certain situation. As a result, the manual can address different sensations as perfectly normal disorders and, as a result, generates overdiagnosis in the area of mental health.
Until recently, situations such as grief over the loss of a loved one were overcome with the support and acceptance of the immediate environment of the person suffering from the loss, family and friends helped the person cope with this discomfort, understood as normal that there be a time of suffering and this was accepted and tolerated. Today, these support mechanisms are weakening.
Today it is much harder to express emotional pain, and those who feel it often find themselves alone to deal with it; In addition, under the assumption of an ideal of well-being at all times, many people are not even allowed to suffer. The solution is to use remedies that the psychiatrist can prescribe in the blink of an eye.
The drug fulfills the function, for better or worse, of helping to manage individual and collective discomfort, overdiagnosis is a reality produced by the two poles of the relationship, on the one hand there are Orthodox psychiatrists, who only know how to treat patients by offering rapid diagnoses and interventions using drugs; on the other, there are those who suffer and refuse to understand their pain; In this way, the person asks for a substance that helps relieve pain.