Mental "Disorder"

On this page I'm going to be gradually adding articles about what are known as mental disorders. The idea of what makes a "disorder" and what makes "order" is something greatly contested. It is different across cultures and subcultures and over time. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—the current medical authority on mental disorders created by the American Psychiatric Association—has a history of pathologizing behavior we currently understand to be normal variations of the human experience (e.g., same-sex attraction). This begs the question: If the world of elite psychiatry agrees that something is a mental disorder, should that be considered a valid conclusion? If not, how do we understand differences in thinking, feeling, and behavior in the human experience as being healthy or unhealthy? Do we deny that mental-emotional experience and behavior can be diseased just like a kidney or heart can be diseased? Or is the concept of disease an invalid construct when applied to human psychology?

In my articles I will delve into what I see as the clinically valid and clinically irrelevant components of the concept of mental disorder and how they apply to therapy and the general human experience.