[0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/13/why-were-turni...
After being diagnosed with something in the DSM - I experienced this myself, and have been very aware of the Heisenbergian side effects of labelling and observing something like this in a specific concrete way.
Common wisdom with some psychological diagnoses is that the symptoms often seem to get worse after diagnosis because you start to notice the problems more. But I think there is an "identity" element to this too as you elude to.
I think this is somewhat inevitable, but the question is, even though you may be subconsciously influenced by the diagnosis itself - is it still better to have such a diagnosis and to be able to work with that information - versus not?
From my own experience, I'm not quite sure - but I'd probably lean towards having the diagnosis still being the better option.
I may be wrong but the "little boxes" in the DSM are not supposed to be an identity. They are supposed to represent a pathology, essentially, if one of the boxes is checked, then you need help. Which box is an indication of what kind of help is the most appropriate: a drug? which one? counselling? hospitalization?
It may be a continuous scale, like most diseases really, but how much help you need has to be quantified in order to take action. That's what the "little boxes" are for, or at least, that's how I see it.
The diagnosis in the DCM are built very strangely. They are basically cluster of symptoms which are statistically seen to occur together in reports (which are necessarily self report the field being psychology).
It does for a somewhat arbitrary definition of what is a pathology. The DSM has a disproportionate impact on what is and isn’t covered by insurance in the US but isn’t overall a very good tool to decide what treatment is the best and I don’t think doctors base their recommendation on what people check or don’t check in the DSM.
> like most diseases really
Psychology is fairly unique in medicine in that we have very little idea of what’s the actual root cause of people mental disorders.