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General Anxiety Disorders

38 (15.9%)

Major Depressive Disorder (Clinical Depression)

46 (19.2%)

Bipolar Disorder

12 (5%)

Schizophrenia

8 (3.3%)

Autism Spectrum Disorders

28 (11.7%)

Learning disorders

8 (3.3%)

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

21 (8.8%)

Other (Please specify)

14 (5.9%)

Nothing(so far)

64 (26.8%)

Total Members Voted: 155

[scrdest]

Isn't something just worth classifying as a disorder if it has an unavoidable negative impact on your life?

This just in, death is now a disorder.  Also: taxes.

Yeah, I wanted to point that out, but the discussion went into another direction.

If you go to a psychologist/psychiatrist, the general assumption is that you have a problem that makes you actually go to him. So, if you have some sort of a problem that makes you go see a psychologist and you exhibit some apparently abnormal behavior, it is not too hard to assume the latter leads to the former. The veracity of that conclusion is debatable, but you can see the logic nonetheless.

You do sound depressive, or at least highly negativistic, and your general attitude towards psychiatry points to being either in denial about it, or being a Scientologist.

In regards to the first paragraph, this is certainly relevant.  Especially the part near the bottom about Maurice K. Temerlin.  Also, and let's be fair about it, society (at least American society) has been shaped in such a way that everyone thinks "ohmygod there's something about me that slightly deviates from normal!  I must have something wrong with me!  I need to go see a psychiatrist so he can tell me what disorder I have and give me pills for it!"

As to the second point, one can be critical of psychiatry without being a Scientologist.

Yeah, I heard of that experiment before. Seems like a mix of confirmation bias and less malevolent Stanford Prison Experiment-style effect on the part of the personnel. 'Us vs. Them', classic. In SPE it was 'Guards vs. Criminal Scum' but 'Doctors vs. Poor Insane Folks' is no less powerful.

About the Scientology mention, it was a joke. I have been aware of the Anti-psychology movement and similar movements.

EDIT:
I'll attempt to explain these criteria as I understand them:

The essential features of a personality disorder are impairments in
personality (self and interpersonal) functioning and the presence of
pathological personality traits. [...] - Personality disorder is a disorder in personality (duh). Disorders are bad. Psychological disorders are bad because they make it hard for you to interact with other people and/or function alone.

A. Significant impairments in self (identity or self-direction) and
interpersonal (empathy or intimacy) functioning. - So, features things like dissociation, feeling of pointlessness, sociopathy or emotional distance. It just narrows down the scope of the classification to the known disorders, if none of those are present, it's not a PD.
B. One or more pathological personality trait domains or trait facets. - AKA a person manifests a pathological trait. If s/he does not, it is not a PD.
C. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s
personality trait expression are relatively stable across time and
consistent across situations. - So it's not something that comes and goes. Safety feature against Fundamental Attribution Error (or, if you see a person who is angry and yelling, he does not need to ALWAYS be prone to fits of rage, but maybe he just had a very very shitty day; a crying person needs not be depressive, maybe his whole family just died a painful, prolonged death, leaving him alone and broke.)
D. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s
personality trait expression are not better understood as
normative for the individual‟s developmental stage or socio-
cultural environment. - AKA it's not a 'phase'. Let's say you have a teenager who vandalized a bus stop - he might not have Antisocial Personality Disorder, he just might be a immature shithead. Or if you see a [insert foreigner] doing [funny foreigner thing], he might be doing this because it's a tradition or whatever, not because he's nuts.
E. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s
personality trait expression are not solely due to the direct
physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse,
medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head
trauma). - So, he acts weird for some reason OTHER than being high, drunk, concussed and so on.

Also, note ALL of those must be simultaneously present. So, it's pretty much a checklist, if any of the features is missing, it's not a PD. For example, if you see an aggressive person, you might think he has a disorder. Yet, when you come closer, it turns out he can hardly talk due to the massive volume of alcohol and drugs he consumed. So, checklist, A is good, B good, C good... oh shit, E is not good, he is not crazy.

I see what you were trying to say, but it seems like you were trying to find a flaw where it is not present.

[Lectorog]

Isn't something just worth classifying as a disorder if it has an unavoidable negative impact on your life?

This just in, death is now a disorder.  Also: taxes. 

I meant something about the person, not something external.
I'd definitely classify being dead as a disorder.

[ChairmanPoo]

My point and beef is that the bolded items (the ones I bolded, that is) are arguably pretty relative, evaluated through tests that are to lesser or greater extents somewhat subjective, and could end up making people qualify as having personality disorders simply because of unusual values or circumstances (for instance, I would question the validity of a paranoid personality disorder diagnosis if the test-taker lives in a particularily stressful dog-eats-dog environment). The ridiculously high prevalences (eg: 1 , 2 ) validate me to an extent.

Anyway, I think I'll question someone I get along with from the psych squad on monday, if I catch him on a break. I'm curious about his insight on the matter.

[scrdest]

My point and beef is that the bolded items (the ones I bolded, that is) are arguably pretty relative, evaluated through tests that are to lesser or greater extents somewhat subjective, and could end up making people qualify as having personality disorders simply because of unusual values or circumstances (for instance, I would question the validity of a paranoid personality disorder diagnosis if the test-taker lives in a particularily stressful dog-eats-dog environment). The ridiculously high prevalences (eg: 1 , 2 ) validate me to an extent.

Anyway, I think I'll question someone I get along with from the psych squad on monday, if I catch him on a break. I'm curious about his insight on the matter.

No, if anything, unusual circumstances would DIS-qualify someone from having a personality disorder. See point D: is not part of socio-cultural environment. Certain behavioral patterns are common in certain environments and are an ingrained part thereof, so if someone enters such environment, he will start displaying them too. That, however, does not mean he does have a disorder.

The bolded part in preamble simply states a personality disorder is a disorder of personality, and I cannot see why would that be controversial. For D see above, meanwhile E excludes people exhibiting symptoms due to being on drugs or drunk or having a head trauma, all of which can cause pathological behaviors.

For example, head trauma may, in some cases, lead to Cotard delusion, which is psychotic in nature, yet it does not mean the person was psychotic before (or after the trauma is fixed, if possible). Drugs also covers medications, which are known to produce a variety of possible psychological side-effects.

As for questioning PPD in certain environments: I suspect that it would actually be valid, otherwise you could not diagnose any other case of PPD as valid.

As someone whose behavior is disturbingly close to the line that lets you be diagnosed with it, I suspect it may actually be less of a disease; unlike depression, which involves pathological biochemical changes, PPD seems to be more of a general learned attitude. Pretty much an educated-sounding word for someone rather jaded. Although experiments have been carried with monitoring the disorder in twins, I cannot help but wonder: were they raised separately? If so, there can be a decent claim to genetic risk factors, if not, the claim would be dubious at best.

[ChairmanPoo]

No, if anything, unusual circumstances would DIS-qualify someone from having a personality disorder. See point D: is not part of socio-cultural environment. Certain behavioral patterns are common in certain environments and are an ingrained part thereof, so if someone enters such environment, he will start displaying them too. That, however, does not mean he does have a disorder.

... yet for the most part there are no adjustments based on social group to the tests. For that matter, it's still a troublesome statement, because it allows for the definition of almost any trait as pathological simply because it's unusual.

The bolded part in preamble simply states a personality disorder is a disorder of personality, and I cannot see why would that be controversial. For D see above, meanwhile E excludes people exhibiting symptoms due to being on drugs or drunk or having a head trauma, all of which can cause pathological behaviors.

For example, head trauma may, in some cases, lead to Cotard delusion, which is psychotic in nature, yet it does not mean the person was psychotic before (or after the trauma is fixed, if possible). Drugs also covers medications, which are known to produce a variety of possible psychological side-effects.

The problem is that by excluding actual pathology and making it about "personality traits", the whole thing becomes highly subjective. Personality is defined as the more or less lasting traits that shape the way a person is. Saying someone has a personality disorder is saying that those traits are pathological in some way, usually because they're extreme and/or go against the norm. I think this is too loose because it can be made to fit all sorts of unusual traits and behaviors.

As someone whose behavior is disturbingly close to the line that lets you be diagnosed with it

You and nearly everyone. In the first link I provided, the given prevalence for the US of personality is 9%. The second one is even worse, stating that only 23% of the studied population samples were free of pathological personality traits. (1 , 2 ). Such ridiculously high prevalences (particularily when the correlation with other sorts of more objetive pathological behavior is limited) suggest there's a problem in how the concept is defined and diagnosed.

I suspect it may actually be less of a disease; unlike depression, which involves pathological biochemical changes, PPD seems to be more of a general learned attitude. Pretty much an educated-sounding word for someone rather jaded.

That's actually my problem with the concept; it's subjective and too damn broad altogether. I am concerned by the potential labelling of attitudes and beliefs as pathological simply because they fall outside the accepted norm.


Note: for the record, I was quoting DSM V, not IV

[Scoops Novel]

Myself, i either had OCD, which i doubt, given the effectiveness of the medication, or more likely a tendency to focus on the negative which makes distractions attractive, and which still causes me problems as my 4 hours of sleep whilst in bed for 9 hours suggests. Counting letters might be relevant, though that's fairly on-off now at least.

[Dutchling]

Counting letters might be relevant, though that's fairly on-off now at least.

I tend to count the letters of sentences I think or read, always checking if it is divisible by 2 and/or 3.

It's incredibly annoying but once I start doing I can hardly ever stop myself :/

[Vector]

When I get antsy, I pretend to type everything I say in my head.  It's a bad habit stemming from fifth grade, when I was learning to touch-type 70WPM and felt like I had to practice all the time.

Also used to count permutations of letters in every word I said.  Got me an A+ in a college math class 8 years later, though

[Dutchling]

I sometimes do that too, but I can't actually touch type all that well

More often I visualize the letters in my head on a keyboard, with the first letters being on the locations of 'zse d cft g bhu j mko l' on a qwerty keyboard.

[griffinpup]

Well I'm perfectly normal!  Ya me lol.  I do feel for you guys though.

[Urdothor]

Lets see, Asperger's, ADD, Multiple Personality(Therapy controlled...)

That's about it.

Edit: I just realized how much is wrong with me.
Also, all have these have been diagnosed by Psychologist. I've had 3 different opinions, they all agree. Thats not good.