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Pathologising

B

I'm just going to quote myself here from the Terminology thread:

" ... a lot of things I grew up believing were just a normal part of being human have names and are actually now labelled a 'condition' or 'disorder'.

I think I must now have about 20 conditions and disorders I wasn't aware of until recently.

It feels as though everything is being neatly put into boxes."

I read this article the other day

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-special-needs-racket-is-out-of-control/

(if a box comes up + it looks like you can't read the article, you can close the box down and read still).

I'm really undecided what I think about all this.

When I was younger I had 'anxiety' put on my medical records and I was very surprised as I thought everyone got anxious, although I'd been given meds to deal with it.

Anyway, I later heard about 'general anxiety disorder' and I still can't make my mind up about whether anxiety is just part of the human condition.

Do others have views on these thoughts?

Are too many things being pathologised and defined these days?

Parents

  • There is an interesting research piece just released about the interconnectedness of the different neurodiverse conditions.

    It is a bit heavy going (lots of terminology is used) but some interesting science is being looked at here.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09820-3 

    Here we examined the shared and unique influences of common genetic variants across 14 psychiatric disorders. Triangulating across multiple, complementary analytic approaches, we dissected the genetic architecture across disorders at the genome-wide, regional, functional and individual genetic variant levels.

    Note - when I refer to neurodiverse I use the formal meaning:

    From www.dictionary.com/.../neurodiverse

    neurodiverse - adjective

    1 - having or relating to atypical neurological traits and ways of thinking; not neurotypical.

    2 - consisting of or relating to people with a variety of neurological traits or ways of thinking.

Reply

  • There is an interesting research piece just released about the interconnectedness of the different neurodiverse conditions.

    It is a bit heavy going (lots of terminology is used) but some interesting science is being looked at here.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09820-3 

    Here we examined the shared and unique influences of common genetic variants across 14 psychiatric disorders. Triangulating across multiple, complementary analytic approaches, we dissected the genetic architecture across disorders at the genome-wide, regional, functional and individual genetic variant levels.

    Note - when I refer to neurodiverse I use the formal meaning:

    From www.dictionary.com/.../neurodiverse

    neurodiverse - adjective

    1 - having or relating to atypical neurological traits and ways of thinking; not neurotypical.

    2 - consisting of or relating to people with a variety of neurological traits or ways of thinking.

Children
  • in reply to Iain

    Thanks for the pointer..  "a bit heavy going" hehe - such mastery of understatement  

    I can't say that I have the skill and/or patience to read and properly digest and then reflect upon the paper so I'll jump to a quote from the discussion which says that they have:

    "identified subsets of disorders with particularly high genetic overlap and characterized the biological processes implicated by their shared risk"

    So certain inheritable risks end up being expressed in neurodivergence.    And from what i can make of it the researchers are proposing that pharmacological interventions might be used to target "shared" risk for neurodivergence in "themed" areas according to the genetics.

    So traits run in families - seems to be pretty obvious to anyone who has met people and different people need different stimulus or support to engage in things they are not by heredity naturally suited to do.

      e.g. (at times as such foolishness and stupidity as war) some people being genetically "up for a fight" and others having to drink significant amounts of alcohol or be roused to a frenzy by some rabble rousing to get involved..

    However whose idea was it to go to war anyway?...

    By which I mean that In essence, these disorders result from a complex interplay where a person's inherent genetics  interact with diverse internal and external influences throughout their life.

    Perhaps one needs to be pragmatic and accept that society will likely not change to better suit the individuals so that their neurodivergence does not become "pathological" and therefore take all the drugs and therapy one needs.

    Personally I would rather society get a better capability to not see neurodivergence as pathological and not provoke it to be so as much as appears to be the case at present.