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A Therapist Grapples with Diagnosis Culture - Mental Hellth

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When seemingly everyone has a DSM disorder, how do we find out what's actually going on?

Elizabeth Polly is an associate MFT. Though she has abstracted the details of her client's lives, she is writing under an alias to further distance herself and protect their privacy. At a big public high school where I worked as a therapist-in-training, a student used to drop into the wellness office saying she was scared, she had a pit in her stomach, and asking if it was a panic attack. Knowing from first hand experience how suggestible the nervous system is, I found myself reluctant even to assess possible symptoms for fear of feeding her imagination, like say: short of breath, say:…

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