The following article concentrates on the controversies surrounding each revision of the "Therapist's Bible," the DSM.
Is The APA labeling the "problems of daily living" a disease? "There is a lot of pain and suffering in the world, and it is tempting to believe that the mental health community knows how to help. It is widely believed, both by mental health professionals and the general population, that if only a person gets the right psychiatric diagnosis, the therapist will know what kind of measures will be the most helpful." This struck me as being applicable here in a number of ways:
Tendencies to over-diagnose others
as well as ourselves.
Given the controversies with each new revision of the DSM, that not all therapists are equally competent as professionals nor as people (which applies to any profession--- if you don't make progress with one T, find another).
That diagnoses and labels aside, people are still responsible for their actions, even those suffering from mental illnesses, which is an opinion shared by those who have recovered from BPD.
This point is salient to the board:
Defining mental illness is complicated - where do you draw the line?
One prominent DSM-IV author has proposed that “relational disorder” be added to the manual. “Relational disorder” would be applied to a couple, neither of whom individually might be considered mentally ill but whose relationship would be considered sick. It is revealing to picture this scene: Two people sit in a psychiatrist’s office; neither of them is considered mentally ill, though their relationship is; the psychiatrist removes a pill from its bottle…where does the psychiatrist put the pill?
