Mar 26, 2021
In this installment of my How To Series, I look at the important distinction between diagnosis and symptoms. So many of the people who come to see me either are saddled with a diagnosis that causes them to have significant worries and doubts, or are desperate for a diagnosis to explain what is going on for them. The problem? Neither of these situations is a good one and it is totally avoidable if we think in terms of symptoms and not diagnosis.
One point that I lay out clearly in this video is that a diagnosis — outside of a life threatening, or life altering medical one — is really just a collection of symptoms that tell us WHAT is happening, but not why. This is why it is most useful to interpret most non-life threatening symptoms as just a description of what is happening, rather than a clear indication of the source. Thinking of symptoms instead of diagnosis also prevents you from getting locked into one way of thinking about things — especially important when the prevailing thought is incorrect — and opens the door to thinking more scientifically and critically so we can get to the bottom of the source of the symptoms.
I look at some typical mental health diagnoses in psychology to show just how important this can be in getting you free of your symptoms and not feeling the doubt, fear, and limited thinking of diagnosis. I distinguish between clear cut cases of severe mental health issues, such as true metabolic bipolar issues or schizophrenia, as opposed to behavioral diagnoses that just say what someone is doing, feeling, or experiencing without causal connection. Use this video as a guide to help you consider whether or not you might have a mind body issue going on, rather than a ‘diagnosis’. Instead of diagnosing, we can conceptualize what is happening, by which I mean we can actually understand the cause of the symptom, instead of trying to describe the pathway it will likely take in made up diagnoses that are very often without accuracy or usefulness.