A note about clinical diagnosis: There is considerable disagreement about the meaning of psychiatric diagnoses. Basically, a diagnosis refers to a pattern of behavior; some of these patterns have been very closely correlated with discernible biochemical or neurological markers, while others have not. For example, we see clear biological differences in the blood chemistry of certain kinds of depressive people, while there is (so far) no such biological basis for obsessive-compulsive behavior. 

Also, psychology and psychiatry evolved in a time when the medical model of behavior was the dominant view. Therefore, diagnosis came about as a way of attempting to identify what the patient “had,” as if it were a disease like measles, mumps, or cancer. 

Nowadays, we are more aware of social conditions which might induce various patterns of behavior, so we aren’t quite as definite that there is something “inside” a person that makes them act the way they do. 

But, if we didn’t have some way of categorizing patterns of behavior, we’d be starting from scratch each time someone came to see us, and would have no basis on which to decide what kind of treatment could be effective, whether medication might help, etc. So diagnoses serve some purpose, even though the idea of categorizing a human being is objectionable to us. The important thing is, to see each person as an individual (in fact, to “start over” every time a new client walks in the door), and to use the diagnosis as a useful but not all-defining tool to help make sense of things- as far as it goes. 

The discussions of clinical patterns/syndromes/diagnoses are presented on this website in that spirit.

*For an interesting discussion of the realities of diagnosis, see The Dictionary of Disorder: How one man revolutionized psychiatry, by Alix Spiegel in the January3, 2005 New Yorker magazine.