There's an undercurrent here that I find troubling, and I think it's the belief that, because psychiatric diagnoses rely on something other than "objective biological tests", mental illness is somehow less "real" than other illnesses.
That's a conceit that only someone who has neither experienced nor been exposed to severe mental illness can hold. One cannot interact with someone that is floridly psychotic and not come to the conclusion that, while the specific diagnostic criteria may be subjective, there is something objectively wrong with that individual's biological functioning.
>One cannot interact with someone that is floridly psychotic and not come to the conclusion that, while the specific diagnostic criteria may be subjective, there is something objectively wrong with that individual's biological functioning
Without any objective scientific proof, this is at best theoretical, and at worst mythological.
Such an arrogant assumption has led to horrible conclusions:
That's a conceit that only someone who has neither experienced nor been exposed to severe mental illness can hold. One cannot interact with someone that is floridly psychotic and not come to the conclusion that, while the specific diagnostic criteria may be subjective, there is something objectively wrong with that individual's biological functioning.