everything is pathologized

I think I am perhaps a bit too willing to pathologize behaviors - mine and others. Recently, I was explaining to a friend that my pre-school-aged son's teacher suggested that he might have some sort of disorder. I described the behaviors and what the teacher had said, and my friend blurted out, "yeah, it's called being FOUR!" Then, another incident: explaining to a colleague that I thought my depression about a certain aspect of my work was getting in the way of doing it effectively. "Why do you call that depression?" he asked, "it strikes me as a sober analysis of the situation."

The particulars of the situations described above do not matter for the purposes of this post (whereas they matter very, very much in my actual life). My point is that a tendency toward labeling emotions, reactions, behaviors, with a kind of false specificity, is worth questioning.

I just finished reading Clancy Martin's fine essay, "The Drunk's Club: A.A., the cult that cures," in the January 2011 issue of Harper's Magazine. His essay examines the role of A.A., and the nature of meetings on the lives of those who are recovering. He refers to philosopher Herbert Finagrette who observes that the label "alcoholic" can harm the drinker in a number of ways, not the least of which is that the term can excuse behavior, carry social stigma, and create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Certainly, the labeling of contemporary youth with varied and multiple disorders, the self-diagnosis I participate in on a seemingly daily basis - can do similar harm, even if harm is not all that they do; that is, even is there is some merit to the diagnosis, and a pathway to management emerges from it.

We label things (and people) in order to understand them, to ascribe meaning, to interpret. In so doing, it seems, we should take great care not to allow the label to replace the thing itself, to become a stand-in for something far more complicated, more nuanced, and ultimately, more human.