Should Mental Disorders Have Names?
The root issue here is finding some path forward for helping people. Psychiatry, psychology etc aren&#x27;t doing a great job with that.<p>He tries to determine what has happened historically but not <i>why.</i><p>Why was this guy using drugs starting at age ten? What led up to that? Shouldn&#x27;t it be classified as a parenting failure, not a &quot;disorder&quot; on his part?<p>What was the history with the father? Perhaps assaulting his father wasn&#x27;t simply due to insanity. Some parents are really awful to their kids and it&#x27;s a huge problem for the kid. That doesn&#x27;t necessarily stop being true just because the kid became a legal adult.<p>Labels determine what mental models we use when trying to intercede in a problem. Different labels get very different reactions and treatment modes.<p>We need to up our game in myriad ways, but labels are a critical tool for this problem space. I hate labels, but they are a useful communication tool.