Whores of the Court

Whores of the Court  QUOTE:

Diagnostic Courses, or How to Tell What's Wrong

If you can't come up with a diagnosis, you can't send a bill. So it is obviously important that students be taught how to tell if someone is suffering from any of the hundreds of disorders cataloged by the American Psychiatric Association in its bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. 

Of course, there is not sufficient time in three short years for detailed study of all the literature on the existence and treatment of the myriad of billable disorders and their dozens of symptoms. It would be impossible. Remember, there are some four hundred problems and disorders, each with a number of putatively distinguishing symptoms that can reveal themselves in tricky disguises. Students just can't memorize all this material, and in any case, clinicians believe that it is really not the sort of material one can learn from a book. Any number of practitioners will assert that diagnosis is more an art than a science, and that, as such, it is best learned in the field at a master's knee. The success of this approach should be apparent to all upon contemplation of the conflicting diagnoses routinely offered by testifying psychoexperts at any criminal or civil trial involving a dispute over someone's mental state. After all, it is not surprising that different artists make different forms from the same raw clay. Different masters reveal different truths. (p 77)

I find this book quite interesting, although in the ultimate analysis, most USA books end up only perpetuating a useless polarization between left and right, which obviates actual thinking.

UPDATED:  Although I think she tends to tread a rather extreme line of skepticism toward any therapeutic knowledge, for instance in attacking Judith Herman as well Vietnam veterans claims of having PTSD, I agree with her in essence that the human psyche is nowhere near as fragile as contemporary culture makes it out to be.  In fact, I constructed my shamanistic paradigm of psychological regeneration in recognition of this.