who here can help diagnose a mental illness?

trick question.  the answer is: none.  the most qualified, well-read mental health professional cannot and will not give a diagnosis in this context.  if they do, they're unethical.

anyone who pretends to be able to give a diagnosis is either (a) misinformed; (b) projecting their own illnes; (c) an undergraduate psych student; or (d) a hypochondriac specializing in self-diagnosis and sharing the wealth.

i hate this crap.  there is absolutely nothing helpful or useful about telling someone you've never met what you think their psychiatric problem is.  it generates fear, perpetuates stigmas, and creates barriers to seeking help (and to receiving help, once sought).

You feel better now?

a little.

I just read the thread that I assume sparked this one.

You know the friend of mine with the issue?  I finally got to talk to some of his friends and he's definitely in an active stage of the disorder.  He's much more reserved (for a lack of a better word) this time compared to the last.  I urged them to try to get him to seek help, but to no avail.  Currently, I'm avoiding his phone calls.

hmmm.  yeah, that's all you can do, bud.

There is an expert disagreeing with my diagnosis!?!?!?!??! How dare you! haha..The sun is the sun, and the moon is the moon, and that is obviously sexual... you know the rest.

As far ethics.... we can talk about this through PM.the second paragraph sounds... not really revelant. The first and third paragraphs are debatable, sounds like it came out of a textbook in an ethics course in Psychology. But we will discuss that later.

I agree.  Psychiatric diagnoses are highly subjective, even to the very most qualified mental health providers in a clinical setting.

Not to mention that diagnoses of bipolar disorder, clinical depression, and ADHD by a professional mean just about nothing nowadays.

Surely you jest! You mean that every person on the internets doesn't have their PhD in psychology and isn't a trained psychiatrist? You're honestly telling me that reading a wikipedia entry about a disorder doesn't make me an expert on the subject? Reading a few lines about how someone is feeling doesn't qualify me to make assessments on their mental state? Surely you must be joking, or all of my understanding of the internet and the people on it has been wrong for all these years!

Original Post by p0nda:

Surely you jest! You mean that every person on the internets doesn't have their PhD in psychology and isn't a trained psychiatrist? You're honestly telling me that reading a wikipedia entry about a disorder doesn't make me an expert on the subject? Reading a few lines about how someone is feeling doesn't qualify me to make assessments on their mental state? Surely you must be joking, or all of my understanding of the internet and the people on it has been wrong for all these years!

How profound. *claps hands*

One thing I hate about fast food diagnosis is how medical doctors prescribe anti-depressants so easily.

Original Post by fortius:

How profound. *claps hands*

One thing I hate about fast food diagnosis is how medical doctors prescribe anti-depressants so easily.

I especially hate that you can get them from your general practitioner, who has almost no experience (and probably only med school training) in treating mental illne

Interjection-  I hate it when I have to get all pedantic about something, but your original question was not "Who here is qualified to diagnose?" but "Who here can help diagnose?," which I interpreted as "Can someone help to point me in the right direction with a problem I'm having?," which I gladly would have done had it been a situation with which I had any experience or knowledge.  Just my thoughts...     &nbs p; 

thanks for the opportunity to clarify, flonklar.

the answer to both question is "No one."  neither the most qualified mental health professional nor the least qualified armchair shrink is likely to help by throwing around diagnoses and labels.  the difference is that the former individual has a professional code of ethics telling them not to do so, while the latter answers only to a personal code of ethics.

there are very good reasons for giving diagnoses in person, in safe surroundings, in the context of therapeutic relationships. 

gee, pgeorgian, your post is of course right.  and the avatar of the poster that may have prompted it is a troll, and worth all the credibility that implies.

on the other hand, the last is a little extreme. If someone says "I feel sad all the time, I stay in bed all day, and I don't see the point of life anymore." it would be a perfectly reasonable thing to suggest that the person might seek help for depression.

If a person is eating 700 calories, is 5'4" 95 and thinks they are fat, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that that person seek help for some sort of disordered eating issue.

Of course most of us aren't mental health pros and professionals shoudln't diagnose over the internet. But there are some mental symptoms that cry for medical help as much as physical symptoms like chest pain or a red swollen streaky painful cut.

Original Post by alevin:

on the other hand, the last is a little extreme. If someone says "I feel sad all the time, I stay in bed all day, and I don't see the point of life anymore." it would be a perfectly reasonable thing to suggest that the person might seek help for depression.

The sun is the sun, and the moon is the moon.. but it isn't ethical to say so.

I personally feel that blanket diagnosing someone with any possible kind of mental health problem is indeed very risky for even a professional sitting in the same room.

However this being the Internet I think people should be very cautious as you have no real idea other than what they write ( and yes folk do tell lies or withhold the truth). That being the case the diagnoses of complete strangers by non professionals could in fact cause much more harm than good!

By all means say that they should seek professional help but it should be left there, and words should be chosen very carefully.....Remember it is more often the smallest of things/remarks that are actually the trigger to push someone over the edge.

That's my 2 pennies worth on it.

But offering specific diagnoses, physical or mental, is uncalled for.

If you have severe chest pain, this could be one symptom of a heart attack and you should get medical help right now (common sense), vs. you are clearly suffering from angina (unwarranted diagnoses)

Original Post by alevin:

But offering specific diagnoses, physical or mental, is uncalled for.

If you have severe chest pain, this could be one symptom of a heart attack and you should get medical help right now (common sense), vs. you are clearly suffering from angina (unwarranted diagnoses)

That isn't obvious and it's ambiguous, chest pain could be indicative of a lot of things, and someone untrained in the field would not know.

This situaiton is blaringly and without a doubt unequivably obvious.

It's funny you should bring that up, back in October I had severe pain in my chest radiating to my left shoulder, and across my back!

Now I found this to be nothing more than a painful irritation! However I mentioned it on the Internet and it was said to me that I maybe heading/having a heart attack!

I know the intention was meant well and it was said out of concern but even so I started to get worried in case they were in fact right, I lost sleep over it.

In the morning I went to the Doctor and had all the tests done "To put my mind at ease" The Doctor said because I was in fact suffering from nothing more than stress and the worry just added even more.

Had I been suffering from some form of mental illness can you imagine?

I know peoples intentions are generally good when offering help but case in hand!

edit to add: Oh and I mentioned to my GP about the Internet diagnoses of me and well lets just say the short version of their reply "that Internet diagnoses is the one of the biggest problems they have with people turning up in a real state over something they think is wrong with them but is indeed something totally different.

Original Post by andie-joe:

It's funny you should bring that up, back in October I had severe pain in my chest radiating to my left shoulder, and across my back!

Now I found this to be nothing more than a painful irritation! However I mentioned it on the Internet and it was said to me that I maybe heading/having a heart attack!

 

Looking up physical symptoms on the internet can be a good and bad idea. I've known some people who could not get a clear diagnosis from their GP, so they researched their symptoms and actually found out what was wrong.

If the symptoms persist, you could get a second opinion.

I looked up some symptoms of mine once, and of course the first thing that popped up in google was CANCER! You could look up a headache on any search engine and it will say you have cancer or some STD.

Original Post by fortius:

This situaiton is blaringly and without a doubt unequivably obvious.

whether or not the "diagnosis" is correct is beside the point.  but you're deliberately ignoring that.