Or regarding the specific quote, in the context of going to a normal school, "severely gifted" might be the right word for describing these children. If these children are given something meaningful to do in school instead, then the moniker would not be apt.
Even if this were true (which it isn't) the psychiatrist can always argue that the fact that someone else doesn't like the symptoms negatively affects the patient and therefore he is ill.
Circular reasoning like this is common practice.
Maybe I was being too general, but the diagnosis criteria I remember from when I've looked at such (including ADHD, Autism spectra disorders, and Depression) have included such qualifiers, IIRC.
Checking ASD, the following is one of the criteria:
The deficits result in functional limitations in effective communication,
social participation, social relationships, academic achievement,
or occupational performance, individually or in combination.
Of course the diagnosing psychiatrist could always fudge the facts, but arguing whether or not psychiatrists accurately apply diagnosis criteria is a different matter to arguing that "to avoid one or another mental illness diagnosis, [...] you can't be extraordinary in any way".
But that happens to be true and easily verified. If you're bright, you're assured of the Asperger's diagnosis unless you insist on avoiding the company of psychologists, increasingly difficult in modern times. If you're gay, it was the same thing -- until the public demanded that psychologists stop handing out mental illness diagnoses to gay people.
The history of psychology is punctuated with examples in which obviously appropriate behavior was falsely labeled as evidence of disease, including the infamous example of "drapetomania" -- slaves who ran away from their masters were obviously mentally broken and in need of professional help to reunite them with their owners.
Psychologists don't wait for people to appear and ask for help -- they issue press releases announcing the discovery of yet another imaginary ailment from which many are claimed to be suffering in silence. Example:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mental-wealth/201207/el...
But there is no fudging. Someone not liking something about you that you are totally OK about does negatively impact you if that person is say your spouse.
There is no fudging. This is the usual modus operandi.
This is a false claim. The only requirement is that a psychologist deem you mentally ill. For example, in the eyes of psychology, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Thomas Jefferson all are/were mentally ill -- that is, until the imagined malady they were supposed to be suffering from was abandoned because of public outrage.
In the same way and with the same effects, homosexuality was a lucrative mental illness until the public forced psychology to accept that it is not an illness and abandon it.
These are two among dozens of examples in which psychology invents illnesses, then offers bogus cures, all for a fee.
> Or regarding the specific quote, in the context of going to a normal school, "severely gifted" might be the right word for describing these children.
That's absurd. It stigmatizes a gift, an example of nature's occasional generosity. To an adult, the absurdity of this kind of writing and thinking is obvious. But to gifted children, most too inexperienced to understand psychology's real role in society, it constitutes yet another burden in their formative years -- years spent in therapy listening to an intellectually handicapped person exhorting them to try to be more "normal."
> If these children are given something meaningful to do in school instead, then the moniker would not be apt.
I agree with your point, but it's never apt -- it stigmatizes the gifted without recompense. You seem to be missing the point that (a) public schools are notorious for failing the gifted, and (b) this kind of talk only shifts the burden onto the children and away from where it belongs -- on our broken educational system, and on psychology.
Not really, you just have to learn to avoid them at an early age and to not answer any of their questions except through an attorney.
An advanced directive would be more useful than having a lawyer there. A discussion with your nearest relative about what you want and what you want them to say would be more useful.
The nature of human development just means that we all inherit some level of personality "defect". But psychologists don't view them all as candidates for a diagnosis of mental illness.
For example, Russian word for "nerd" is literally "botanist" ("ботаник").
A behavioral health diagnosis, just like any health diagnosis, just recognizes that you have some thing that is negatively impacting you.
Just as the diagnosis of an ingrown toenail doesn't mean you need special treatment, neither does a mental health diagnosis.
Nonsense. Try getting a top security clearance if you have a mental illness diagnosis. Try getting certain kinds of insurance, or preferential treatment in many professions, or any number of other examples in modern society -- a mental illness diagnosis is a burden for a lifetime. The fact that the "illness" may have resulted from a fantasy like recovered memory therapy or be based on a make-believe ailment like Asperger's or homosexuality, doesn't matter -- same burden, same stigma.
That does not conflict with anything I said. A mental health diagnosis does not generally mean that a person is dangerous, unemployable, or disabled.
A negative reaction of others to a diagnosis, based on fear and ignorance, is a big problem that we need to address. But those erroneous reactions don't change the intrinsic meaning of a diagnosis.
There's plenty of people with severe mental illness who have security clearances.
Yes, but only if they lie or waffle in their applications, because mental illness is specifically discussed as a reason to deny clearance.
http://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/security-clearance-jobs...
Ah, "severely gifted" -- what a meme. What a commentary on the times in which we live. I can imagine psychologists surveying this new frontier with barely concealed joy, in particular now that the DSM is being abandoned.
People need to understand that, in modern times, to avoid one or another mental illness diagnosis, you can't be too smart or too dumb, you can't be hyperkinetic or hypokinetic, you can't be extraordinary in any way. You have to be the very definition of dull and unimaginative. You have to be a psychologist.