Don't obsess over categorizing mental disorders: a psychiatrist's perspective

"The question of what is a mental disorder and what is just an expected part of the “human condition” is an age-old, fraught and still unresolved question. Severe mental disorders are easy to recognize, but there is no clear line between normal and abnormal, and no definitive diagnostic test. So there is bound to be disagreement about the large swath of conditions in the grey zone.

Here’s a simple suggestion for making sense of the dilemma: Don’t try to categorize mental disorders. Even though the standard diagnostic manual of mental disorders, called DSM-5, does indeed categorize them, most experts agree that the classification system is best considered just a guideline, to be applied flexibly. Think more fluidly about most mental disorders being on a continuum with normality – one end of a spectrum for a given human trait / tendency. Moreover, many mental disorders also overlap with each other, such that an individual might easily be “diagnosed” with several “disorders.” Visualise the spectrum graphically: plotted as a bell curve, like for IQ scores or height or other normally distributed traits in the population."

Continue reading at Dr. Lewis' Sunnybrook blog series "Finding Purpose".