The Danger of Diagnosis when Self-Healing

Self-Healing

The human psyche is very rich and complex. If it's difficult for a mechanic to diagnose what's wrong with our car, image how a therapist feels when they are trying to help a patient. But people do need professional help to begin the process of self-healing after trauma. Still, we should be careful about the potential dangers that diagnosis can bring.

What is a diagnosis?

A psychological or psychiatric diagnosis is a tool for understanding a patient and trying to help them. This looks easier than it is, because trained professionals have to take a lot of things into consideration before diagnosing someone. There are a lot of factors at stake – psychological, environmental, social, etc., and they can all impact the way a person deals with trauma, and how he or she even comprehends it. It can also shape the way in which a person will begin the recovery process.

The danger of stigma

Self-healing can be more difficult with diagnostic labels. A person with trauma can be labelled as depressive as a consequence of trauma, and that can even deepen the bad feelings associated with trauma. It can also slow down the healing process. This can happen not only because of the stigma connected to psychological and psychiatric diagnosis and labels but also because of the fact that patients feel like people are viewing them only through this diagnosis. This contributes to their feelings of loneliness and isolation, which is not helping the recovery process.

Viewing the person through their diagnosis

Professionals may miss the mark, so to speak, by viewing patients through their medical labels, which are often very fixed and rigid. People are usually more complex than that, and this goes for people with emotional trauma as well. Sometimes the devil can be in the details, as the saying goes, which professionals sometimes miss because they concentrate too much on the medical framework and ignore the many complexities of patients.

Not taking a patient's history into account

To treat trauma and trigger a healing process, therapists need to take into account the patient's history which could have led to the trauma, especially if the patient isn't sure which event has caused it. Without that, the patient cannot heal himself or herself properly, and this will significantly impact the patient's side of the job, so to speak, which is a process of self-healing. If a therapist is not familiar with all the patient's life events, they could miss the trigger for trauma. This could further hurt the patient and stop him or her in healing properly.

Conclusion

There are dangers of diagnosis which can negatively impact a person's healing process, and prevent them from recovering. The criticisms laid out here should be on the mind of each therapist, because it's tremendously important to avoid making these mistakes in order to help a patient get through trauma and bring meaning and happiness into their lives.