Should we get rid of labels?

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Should we get rid of psychiatric labels and instead replace them with profiles?

Psychiatric labels are arbitrary and even within a label there is too much variance. I can understand why autism confuses so many people (even with the notion of a spectrum), how can those that are non-verbal, and are/or entirely dependent on round-the-clock care from birth throughout life, share the same label as those that are verbal, fairly independent (not completely), and have a different set of problems.

But if a profile is made for those children that deviate from average and have problems, they can get extra help, have all the benefits that would come with a label - but not be labelled, however still recognized.

Like me for example, I had speech delay, concentration problems, highly stereotyped behaviour, self-injurious behaviour and very poor social integration - plus a period of selective mutism. A profile could be made of a child like that, and educational requirements could then be made to help that child. Instead of making more and more labels to ensure that no one gets missed.

A profile would be better because those symptoms above don't always affect just autistic kids, it's only when they come together does it get called autism. Surely a profile would help those that don't meet the list of criteria.

And I'm referring to all labels not just autism. We can then accept that these symptoms are highly variable, and it would mean that no one is missed. Instead of a whole group of people who exhibit wildly divergent symptoms getting the same label, as it's too concrete and simplistic.


Just an idea, I welcome criticism.

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I like your idea and I have voted yes I only see one slight problem.

A profile requires a bit more effort.

No.

I will elaborate tomorrow or later, I'm too tired now.

I like the idea, but if you say very poor social integration, for instance, it might need specific treatments if it is due to autism and not something like social anxiety which anyone could suffer from.

Labels are an important part of communication. A word like "house" is almost meaningless because it can mean so many things. But it is very useful when you need to specify certain things.

Psychiatric labels have some utility, so they will be used. I suspect that as medical understanding grows, people will have detialed genetic profiles, intestinal microbiome profiles, and a host of other data that will significantly improve and personalize diagnositc and therapeutic procedures. Some of the information gathered in all this testing will result in the identification of new patterns and these will generate new labels. I think it's an inevitable part of the way language works.

I think profiles are a great idea for borderline or undefinable cases. I see too many people being labelled with labels really that don't fit just to get support. That would fix the problem of people not getting enough support and getting incorrectly labelled. I still think that labels are a good idea for people that clearly fit into one label.

My parents always made sure to treat my problems as a profile than a label.

Profiles would be good in addition to labels. Doing away with labels altogether is a bad idea because:

1) There is so much info in the world and the human brain can't handle it so we must categorize to deal with it, this includes info about people.

2) If you group ppl into diagnostic categories you can do empirical research on what kind of things work best to treat people with symptoms in that group. In-fact first you can learn specifics about the problems people have in this group and how they work and perhaps the origin of the disorder and then you can more effectively determine what would be the best treatment. Researching treatments for specific symptoms and then applying them individually to people with the symptom and treating each symptom a person has in a different way is not organized and systematic enough and not practical.

What should happen ideally is identify symptoms that cluster together and label it OCD, do tons of research and learn CBT and ritual prevention generally works better to treat the disorder. Identify and diagnose the patient with OCD and know what works best for that disorder but ALSO look at the individual patient and his symptoms and circumstance and keeping in mind your knowledge of what generally works best for OCD and using your professional judgement figure out a plan to treat the patient.

The label of Asperger's Syndrome takes care of the issue in the OP's first paragraph and where the DSM has it wrong. I think its easier to work with 2 or 3 general labels for most things, profiles are good for people who can read them and know what they are reading and have a use for the specific information. Just as always keep in mind that labels are general rules grouping similar people and there will be exceptions.

I like the idea, but I'm not sure it would work because, as daydreamer84 pointed out, there are different reasons for the same types of behavior, and the best ways to deal with them can differ based on what they have and the reason.

Take such a thing as being quiet... There's a difference between someone who can't talk, someone who have speech problems (stuttering for instance), someone who is shy, aspies who are afraid of saying something wrong, and aspies like me who seldom have much to say, or feel little need to say what they think.

So I'm not sure how useful it would be, but I sure like the idea! I'd much rather have a profile than a label.

I also agree that there are so many differences within groups that the labels are almost useless anyway. I would say to make more categories but no matter how many were made, some would fall between.

I think there is a revolution in neuroscience coming that will naturally take us away from broad labels and towards profiles, and I see that as being a good thing.

This revolution will be similar to the great scientific revolution in chemistry: the realisation that all matter is made up of distinct classifiable chemical elements, instead of merely earth air fire and water.

I predict that in the next 50 years, advances in brain imaging techniques will allow us to say "You have X abnormality in your brain, and that is likely to cause problems with Y and Z."

They will likely find out that what we now call autism has in fact several different underlying neurological causes, and that will be the beginning of the end of the label "autism".