> Turns out we now have research which shows that people get very attached to the little box they are put in by the DSM and that influences how their symptoms evolve.

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.