We All Need a Label

I am participating in a discussion for a psychotherapy journal and I thought why not share it, as it is on the benefits of psychological diagnosis. Yes, you read right, that is what I said.

I see it as another label, is it not? We all have them at some point. Humans do that; we label each other so we know where in our mental file that person fits.

We are black or white or green or yellow, fat or thin, moody or stupid, that sort of thing. Sometimes, as in my case, it helps. I mean, there are some diagnoses that really help to understand someone, to help that person to get a grip on why they can't see that wearing a red shirt with those yellow trousers is going to invite a few stares and that they are color blind - that sort of thing.

It is known there are people who go through life being unable to read or write properly and then when they get to fifty, one of the grandkids get labeled as dyslexic and suddenly they know why they haven't been able to understand the Sunday papers.

The world then looks OK doesn't it? We can say 'hey, I am not thick like everyone said, I am dyslexic'. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone; he was dyslexic, as is Richard Branson. Thank God they weren't just written off and sat in the corner with a dunce's cone on their heads.

I was once diagnosed with O.C.D. (obsessive compulsive disorder). Yes that's right, obsessive compulsive disorder, O.C.D. (obsessive compulsive disorder) when it was in fact that I had had my head mashed to a pulp by a therapist so that I didn't know if I was coming or going.

The 'trick cyclist' even prescribed medication to help me deal with it. Bad move. Wrong label. But then, in her favor, she also diagnosed A.D.D. (attention deficit disorder); I'm not sure if she was just making use of the letters left over in her alphabet soup, lucky she'd had a few spoonfuls otherwise I might also have been awarded HIV or ME.