[lutusp]

> whether or not psychiatrists accurately apply diagnosis criteria is a different matter to arguing that "to avoid one or another mental illness diagnosis, [...] you can't be extraordinary in any way".

But that happens to be true and easily verified. If you're bright, you're assured of the Asperger's diagnosis unless you insist on avoiding the company of psychologists, increasingly difficult in modern times. If you're gay, it was the same thing -- until the public demanded that psychologists stop handing out mental illness diagnoses to gay people.

The history of psychology is punctuated with examples in which obviously appropriate behavior was falsely labeled as evidence of disease, including the infamous example of "drapetomania" -- slaves who ran away from their masters were obviously mentally broken and in need of professional help to reunite them with their owners.

Psychologists don't wait for people to appear and ask for help -- they issue press releases announcing the discovery of yet another imaginary ailment from which many are claimed to be suffering in silence. Example:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mental-wealth/201207/el...