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Anyone else find terms used by mental health professionals offensive?

DazeAndConfused

I was thinking about the labels given to those with mental health struggles. Previously I have been told I had an Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, and am currently considered by the secondary mental health team to be on the spectrum with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, I have issues with the term Disorder. To me it implies that we are broken or wrong to think in the way we do. Given the diabolical state of the world at the moment, what is so great about being and thinking like a neurotypical person. 

More recently I have been reading up about the diagnostic assessment process, and the need for Informants. To me this language invokes overtones of criminality or worse of an oligarchic state and its secret police. I mentioned this to my wife and a couple of friends, and they too were horrified by the term Informant! 

Surely the Neurodivergent community deserves more respect. Derogatory language (disorder, informant) is in my opinion offensive and shows a lack of respect from those working in the mental health arena. The language used in any dialogue is, in my opinion, so important in establishing the tone and nature of any interaction.

I am interested in your views on the subject.

Parents

  • Yes, it feels offensive because autism is a unique way of being and it is a spectrum which manifests in different ways. Unfortunately, until Psychiatrists can better reflect and agree on an appropriate name for autism, we are stuck with disorder. 

    The link describes the differences between syndrome, disorder and disease https://psychologyfor.com/the-differences-between-syndrome-disorder-and-disease/

    Some people prefer to call autism ASC, but I don’t like that as it would feel like a condition I am lumbered with, such as an illness. That is because a condition is something some people have, not something they are. 

    Syndrome sounds better to my ears, but the first link shows why this doesn’t fit. 

    AS (Autistic Spectrum) is great, but that could be problematic as it wouldn’t fit in the existing classifications in the DSM (Second link), it would be returned to the list of disorders. 

    The problem remains that although I am not a condition, I don’t have a condition, and I am not conditioned (unless I increase fitness), I can have a disorder, be a disorder and be disordered  (according to ASD definition), although I don’t identify with those terms.

    I prefer to say I am autistic, and in that way I avoid calling myself disordered or conditioned, or saying I have a disorder or condition. 

    This links to the ‘Book of Disorders’ otherwise known as the DSM https://www.psychiatryonline.org/dsm. To read, you would need to purchase unless you can access it through a library or university.

    in the meantime, I am autistic, other people are non-autistic and if pushed I will agree that the majority of people are not neurodivergent. 

  • in reply to ArchaeC

    Somehow I can't see there ever being a neurotypical disorder, even though NT's cause so many problems and prejudice.

  • in reply to TheCatWoman
    TheCatWoman said:
    I can't see there ever being a neurotypical disorder

    That is because they have developed "normally" or at least the way the vast majority have (hence it being defined as normal). As this is the accepted path of development then it became the standard to measure others against.

    We didn't follow the expected route with our brains development so we do meet the medical definition of disordered.

    TheCatWoman said:
    NT's cause so many problems and prejudice.

    This is true, but they create as many problems for other NTs too.

  • in reply to Iain

    In this case no, because people have very different versions of normality and will insist that something different is abnormal, to an outsider quite randomly, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

  • in reply to TheCatWoman
    TheCatWoman said:
    I'm always a bit wary when someone defines normal, probably because I've so often been on the wrong side of that definition and it seem very moevable feast.

    Do you think this could have caused bias in your reasoning here? 

    I know I have bias in some things and have to carefully consider my discussions to take this into account.

  • in reply to Iain

    I would ask how many differnces are there in the neurology of the human species? Then we can go on to causes etc.

    I'm always a bit wary when someone defines normal, probably because I've so often been on the wrong side of that definition and it seem very moevable feast.

  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    I'm all for asking questions but I thought it had been answered.

    What would the core of the question be? What defines normal?

  • in reply to Iain

    Maybe not, but we can ask the question though can't we? I think we should ask the question too, I don't think you can say on the one hand that people are too stupid or uneducated to understand things like causation and yet bow before the experts on asking questions?

  • in reply to TheCatWoman
    TheCatWoman said:
    Did we really Iain?

    I let the medical professionals decide that. Neither I nor you have the skills to do this.

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