Pathologising

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

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.

I agree B, do I need to be fully present if I'm putting things through a till, or stacking shelves, folding laundry. I daydreamed my way through school, it was much more interesting than the lessons.

I think if someone told me I had maladaptive daydreaming, I'd tell them to stop being so boring! If they were interesting I wouldn't need to daydream.

Cinnabar_wing said:

it was a coping method

Me too, and still is.

Cinnabar_wing said:

Where it doesn't help is if you have greater issues, and the smaller ones aren't the things the person is worrying about. If you had a child with inattentive ADHD, saying they had maladaptive daydreaming would make it seem like it had to fixed, rather than the way they experience the world.

I agree.

B said:

maladaptive daydreaming

I spend I lot of time in my head thinking things, and it was a coping method in school days. I don't think it needs to be pathologised.

I think the danger of over pathologising is when, like you said, you get dozens of labels that don't bring benefit.

If the person actively requires help with something, then having a label can potentially give them that help (if services exists or might highlight the need for a service). 

Where it doesn't help is if you have greater issues, and the smaller ones aren't the things the person is worrying about. If you had a child with inattentive ADHD, saying they had maladaptive daydreaming would make it seem like it had to fixed, rather than the way they experience the world.

Another term is 'maladaptive daydreaming'.

Like a lot of these 'disorders' etc the term was coined this century.

I understand the basis of it ie that it's used if the daydreaming interfers with ordinary life but daydreaming I think is part of the normal human condition and is a great escape from 'ordinary' life.

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.

It's an old maxim in any magical practice that you can't have power with that which you cannot name, I feel this deeply, if I have a name for something then I can work with it instead of blundering around in the dark trying out random tactics to try nad make myself better. I have names for some of the things I live with daily, like dyslexia, I can tell people and explain why I'm having trouble, I can explain to opticians when having an eye test that I really do need lenses for the astigmatism that contributes about 60% of the dyslexia. I have power with it because I can name and explain.

It's difficult when you can name something but strategies are limited, such as ND and fybromyalgia, accomodations can be made for ND's if the people I'm dealing with are willing and I don't have to fight to hard to get them to understand, sometimes I can't and have to walk away. Some people don't believe things like fybromyalgia exist, think it malingering and tell you they feel tired all the time too etc etc, its hard to deal with that sort of unwillingness to understand and the sort of anger and resentment behind it. But it is something I can tell people, there are things I can take and do which help, I can explain it to others and myself.

A diagnosis can be used to empower someone, not everyone feels able to be empowered and will sit and wait for another to come along and make things better, I think these people are disempowered in general, this is something that can be worked with too. 

The main advantage of identifying something is so you can then either offer, or work on, a treatment to alleviate the negative aspects. Or perhaps to identify accommodations.

If this identification provides some benefit, then it is of use and some value.

If it is just a classification process for the sake of it, then it may isolate people and make them feel different or an object of curiosity. 

I can't tell, for each of the conditions, whether there is a nett benefit or not.

I will correct myself, there is one child who gets extra help, but they are so profoundly autistic and learning disabled they didn't learn to talk till they were seven and has a host of other issues/needs. Yet they are doing good in a regular school with their own learning assistant. I'm guessing the author of the article would deign to allow this from his ivory tower.

Well said Cinnabar_wing !

There are two different topics here - there is pathologising everything and then there is the article about schools. 

The article has kind of got my ire up because it's is full to the brim with misinformation. I know from being the Chairperson of my school council (which is in Scotland), that all pupils get for being identified as special needs, is a plan. That's it. No extra money for the school, no extra tuition. Even if half the class needs extra help, the teacher doesn't get any extra assistance. I personally questioned the council on the zoom call, and yeah, that is all the teacher gets. So the author of the article implying parents are getting their kids diagnosed simply for a benefit;

"Children are routinely being made out to be disabled in some way – either because their schools want more money or because their sharp-elbowed parents want them to have some advantage."

Frankly, the author has a daughter that has real difficulties and unless anyone has a child as disabled, he doesn't count them and it's actively attacking the idea they are allowed to have anything wrong with them and shouldn't be allowed and allowances. I think his attitude is disgusting frankly.

I do think there are a lot of conditions and I don't need labels for all of mine, but that article will lead to an attack on disabled people who aren't visiblely disabled.

I think there is a danger of things being pathologised, but whilst a certain level of anxiety over certain things is normal like exams or a job interview, I suspect its really the levels of anxiety someone has and if it's interfering with everyday life.

I do think that people are becoming discouraged from helping each other as they don't feel they have anything to offer and are afraid of doing more harm than good. Maybe its because so many of us have inadaquate support systems that we end up going the doctor or therapists instead.

But I do remember from childhood, that there were many people particularly women who were said to 'live on their nerves' and the number of people, particulalry women who were prescribed valium was huge, "Mothers little helper! as per the Rolling Stones song. We've also got better at diagnosing things, ilke IBS or Endometriosis, I think my Nan might of had the latter as she often had to go to bed because it was all mosre than she could stand. Of course women of her generations didn't see the doctor about such things and most doctors woudn't have expected them too and probably wouldn't have been much help anyway.