Does the idea of psychiatrists diagnosing you with “personality disorder” shock or worry you? It does me. A more crackpot bunch of twisted loonies I have rarely to meet than those doctors who assume the right to make pronouncements about another person’s mental health and personality because they are “experts” in the mind.
99.99% of psychiatrists don’t even have a definition of normal behavior. Like the “Real Wives Of Orange County”? Are they “normal” people? Ha! Who would you pick as a definition of what normal should be?
Then there is the problem of memes: are people who have picked up nonsensical thinking from others or from their parents (so-called “thought viruses”) suffering from personality disorder, or just lousy educational input?
99.99% of psychiatrists don’t know that thinking disorders are mainly physical: low hormones, toxic foods, lack of key vitamins, toxoplasmosis, slow viruses, etc. Is that personality disorder or disease? If someone acts sick and talks babble because they are feverish and delerious, we don’t call that personality disorder; so why is it a disorder if there are other physical causes?
Maybe most personality disorders are “normal”, meaning common.
The current means of recognizing and defining personality disorders in the USA (and many other parts of the world) is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Of Mental Disoders. The DSM-5 is out; as muddled and dangerous as ever.
To me, it’s already an infamous document, on a par with the hideous Malleus Mallificarum (Hammer Of The Witches), published by “psychiatrists” (Catholic Church fanatics) of the 15th century. Malleus Mallificarum was a deranged book by deranged men who seemed more obsessed with the fact women wanted to steal their penises than keeping the faith clean and pure.*
Is the DSM really any better credentialed? It’s actually a sell-more-drugs brochure for the industry.
As a means of diagnosing real personality disorders, it’s a wicked disaster. It’s so bad that most people would automatically be described as having one or more disorders; some would have several, which hardly helps effective treatment.
Worse still, some people who are sick and in real trouble appear to have no disorders at all! (what does that tell you about the state of mind of the fools who wrote this manual?)
The problem with Malleus Mallificarum was much the same: it was diagnosing witches who did not exist and leading to unjust torturing and burning of women, all supposedly in the name of Christ.
* Incredibly, this disgusting text was being defended and justified as late as 1928 by the Vatican (http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/table-of-contents/introduction-to-1928-edition/). Moreover, it’s attitude to women is still widespread.