A map for the road ahead
By: Dr. Patel
He who has overcome his fears will truly be free. -- Aristotle
Mental health has become much more widely and openly discussed recently, with news reports about the topic becoming a regular occurrence. While this is good for the overall emotional health of our society, many more individuals are now receiving a psychiatric diagnosis, and are unsure what this means for their lives moving forward. The overall experience of seeing a therapist or a psychiatrist can be disconcerting, and it would be natural to feel overwhelmed after receiving a diagnosis. After all, it can seem like your entire life is being distilled into a clinical label, which can make the future seem uncertain. None of this has to be the case, however. A diagnosis done properly serves as a map for the future, clarifying the nature of your mind's unique patterns and characteristics. Ideally, this boosts your confidence, giving you a set of tools that you can then use to treat your symptoms and improve the quality of your life.
To clarify things a bit, I'd like to discuss a common example of how a diagnosis should be used, and how it can point you to the right type of treatment. To do this, I'll use a situation involving a classic example of anxiety that occurs in many people: the process of learning how to drive a car.
Normally, learning how to drive is not a huge issue for most of us. At first, it seems extremely dangerous (and it is), but after a short time, it feels like a fairly easy task. Eventually, we don't even think twice before getting in a car, even though there is the ever-present danger of a serious accident. The situation itself hasn’t changed, but our response to it has. The physiological symptoms of anxiety gradually fade, eventually becoming so distant that it seems absurd that we were ever anxious about driving to begin with.
In contrast, consider someone who is trying to learn how to drive, but is having difficulty doing so, experiencing excessive worrying and panic attacks. The person's underlying fear might be of getting into an accident, getting pulled over by the police, having the car break down, or any number of other issues that could come up while driving. Assuming that this person does not pursue any form of treatment and is not forced to drive by necessity, the symptoms will likely worsen over time. Eventually, the individual may then avoid driving, eventually becoming socially isolated and missing out on living a full life.
This is an example of what psychologists call avoidance behavior, which can manifest itself in a wide variety of situations, usually resulting in negative effects on a person's ability to perform everyday activities. Additionally, fear tends to spread throughout one's life if one avoids confronting it, which is why anxiety can jump between seemingly unrelated topics. When the mind is intent on being anxious, even the most benign situation can be transformed into a nightmare.
The person in the above example would likely be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, such as generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, or a specific phobia. The specific diagnosis helps to significantly narrow the range of effective, evidence-based treatments, thus providing some guidance when considering various options. A diagnosis also helps to identify possible associated illnesses; for example, in my clinical experience, anxiety and depression tend to run closely together. Medication can be helpful for these conditions, as well as something called exposure therapy.
Exposure therapy works by helping you to determine the exact nature of the fear that is driving your anxiety, and then delicately confronting that fear in a gradual manner. Eventually, the things that terrify you become normalized, and you are able to confront your fear directly, which then allows you to improve your functioning.
If a person with anxiety avoids treatment, he or she may develop limiting beliefs and feel inferior when others take on new challenges and succeed. Negative thought patterns and self-destructive behavior can then arise, resulting in further suffering. A diagnosis, therefore, can clear the way for the appropriate treatment, which actually allows an individual to move past the diagnosis rather than getting bogged down by it. The path forward is then much easier to see, which can be all it takes to restore a person's confidence and vitality.
As our society becomes more accepting of the need to focus on emotional health, remember that a diagnosis does not define you completely, but can serve as a signpost for your next step in treatment. The goal is to take advantage of that information, and to live the fullest life you can imagine for yourself.
The journey towards emotional health is just that -- a journey -- and you can either wander without clear direction, or use a map. A diagnosis provides a map, which can help you greatly.
Works referenced in this article:
Perkins A, Ridler J, Browes D, Peryer G, Notley C, Hackmann C. Experiencing mental health diagnosis: a systematic review of service user, clinician, and carer perspectives across clinical settings. The Lancet Psychiatry. 2018;5(9):747-764. doi:10.1016/s2215-0366(18)30095-6
What Is Exposure Therapy. What Is Exposure Therapy? https://www.apa.org. https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/exposure-therapy. Published 2019. Accessed August 2, 2019.
Why Avoidance Coping is the Most Important Factor in Anxiety. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-practice/201303/why-avoidance-coping-is-the-most-important-factor-in-anxiety. Published 2013. Accessed August 2, 2019.