The Hidden Crisis of Overdiagnosis and Overmedication in Mental Health

Diagnosing Distress: When Suffering Becomes a Symptom

A 2024 study by Fellin critically analyses how mood disorders are defined in psychiatric handbooks. The takeaway? These manuals often treat normal emotional responses like grief or fatigue as symptoms of pathology. This expands the net of mental disorders, allowing more people to be diagnosed and medicated.

Each of us has a unique story. In childhood, our survival depends on our caregivers. We adapt to protect ourselves if they respond to our emotions in ways that dismiss, punish, or shame us. For instance:

Key idea: Diagnostic criteria often reflect social norms, not objective illness.

A recent 2024 study in Frontiers in Psychology highlights how mainstream mental health textbooks still focus heavily on biological causes of depression, often overlooking the importance of relationships and social context. This gap between current science and what’s being taught to new professionals may contribute to the ongoing trend of overdiagnosis and overmedication, missing the complex relational factors behind emotional distress. Read the full study for more insights.

Trauma Misunderstood: When Children Are Labelled Instead of Heard

Ford (2021) updates us on Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD), a diagnosis proposed to reflect how chronic trauma impacts kids. Yet DTD remains unrecognised, and many traumatised children are mislabelled with ADHD or bipolar disorder.

Key idea: Children's trauma is often misread as pathology, leading to wrong treatments.

A recent review on Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) underscores the need for a diagnosis that truly captures the complex effects of ongoing childhood trauma. Unlike traditional approaches, DTD aims to address the full range of emotional and relational challenges faced by affected children, who are often misdiagnosed and given treatments that miss the real source of their distress. Recognizing DTD could help ensure children receive more accurate, trauma-informed care. Read the full study for more details.

Double Binds & Diagnoses: When Confused Families Create Confused Minds

Drawing on Gregory Bateson's theory of the double bind, we reflect on a real-life interaction: A son opens his arms to his visiting mother. She stiffens. He lowers his arms. She says, "Don't you love me?" He blushes. "You shouldn't be embarrassed to show your feelings," she adds.

This emotionally conflicting interaction is not a symptom of schizophrenia or psychosis, but a desperate attempt to maintain attachment in a confusing relationship. Key idea: Withdrawal into illness may be an intelligent, adaptive response to emotional chaos. This is how pathology is born not from within, but between people—and then medicalised by systems that don't see the whole picture.

Personality or Pain? The Diagnostic Inflation Problem Bach (2023) highlights how new definitions in ICD-11 (the international diagnostic manual) have expanded what counts as a personality disorder, potentially diagnosing people who are simply reacting to difficult life events.

Key idea: The broader the diagnosis, the more normal suffering is treated as disorder.

A recent review highlights how new diagnostic guidelines are making it harder to distinguish between personality disorders and autism in adolescents. Overlapping emotional and social traits often lead to confusion and misdiagnosis, especially for girls who may mask autistic traits. The study stresses the need for careful developmental assessment and awareness of gender differences to ensure young people receive the right support.

Who Gets to Define Illness? (Hint: It's Not You)

Amoretti (2021) reveals the social and philosophical assumptions baked into diagnostic systems like the DSM-5. These aren't neutral science—they reflect power structures, cultural bias, and institutional influence.

Key idea: Psychiatric diagnoses are socially constructed and shaped by dominant paradigms.

The introduction of Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder (SPCD) was intended to address social communication challenges that don’t fit traditional language or autism diagnoses. However, this new category has created confusion, as its symptoms often overlap with autism and other conditions, making accurate diagnosis difficult. The study raises important questions about how we define and support children with social communication difficulties.

Medication Nation:

The Risks We Don't Talk About Studies like Pietkiewicz (2021) and Brand (2016) warn that psychiatric diagnoses—especially when inaccurate—lead to overuse of drugs that often don't help and may harm.

Side effects of common psychiatric medications include:

Key idea: Medication often masks systemic problems and introduces new ones.

Diagnosing dissociative identity disorder (DID) is often complicated by overlapping symptoms and self-diagnosis influenced by online sources. This can lead to confusion and disappointment if the diagnosis changes. The study calls for more careful assessment and clinician training to ensure people receive the right support.

A major review shows dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a real, trauma-based condition—not a fad or just therapist suggestion. DID is often underdiagnosed, and trauma-focused therapy can help. Recognising DID is key to reducing stigma and ensuring people get proper support. Read the full study for more insights.

"Saving Normal"

Dr. Allen Frances' Wake-Up Call Dr. Allen Frances, editor of DSM-IV, became a whistleblower of sorts with his book Saving Normal (2013). He argues that the expansion of diagnoses in DSM-5 was driven more by pharmaceutical lobbying and institutional inertia than clinical need. Key idea: "Normal" has been redefined out of existence and Big Pharma profits. Frances, A. (2013). Saving Normal. William Morrow.

The Foucault Factor

Knowledge Is Never Neutral Foucault's insight—that knowledge and power are inseparable—is more relevant than ever. Today, psychiatric knowledge is often funded, framed, and filtered by pharmaceutical companies. Research affirms medication, because that's what gets funded. Diagnostic expansion creates lifelong customers. You're not "sick." You're a consumer in a system that's incentivised to sell you a cure.

Toward a Systemic Revolution in Mental Health

What if we stopped asking, "What's wrong with you?" and started asking, "What happened to you—and what have you adapted to?" Systemic family therapy, narrative therapy, and attachment-based approaches treat people as relational beings in context—not broken brains in need of chemical correction.