[bshaughn]

I've described the field of Psychiatry as trying to describe a building, using only its shadow (projection from high dimensional space to 2d space), with only a handful of choices for the building type. Ultimately only the building (the patient) really knows the full scope of complexity, but a doctor has to be careful in how they get info out.

I don't have a solution, as its an inherently hard problem with a lot of risks (like giving medicine to the wrong person). But I also think this desire to have nice categories for things can be counterproductive in a lot of cases.

I personally think rebranding aspergers + Autism to the autism spectrum was a mistake, as there's a huge difference between someone who's really good at their job but weird and despises certain workplace nonsense - and someone who can't take care of themselves.

ADHD is another great example of a bucket that makes non sense. We were evolved to be hunter gatherers that get many hours of walking or running, and other physical activity every day. Then we act surprised when 11 year olds don't want to sit still 6 hours a day, or getting people like me to write a JIRA ticket is like pulling teeth.

I think separating out these large categories into smaller ones is a good step, but ultimately I think the categories are a counterproductive solution to our human urge to find a logical explanation to things.

[3836293648]

Merging autism and aspergers was not a mistake. There wasn't at the time enough science to separate them.

There are separations to be made within autism, absolutely 100%, but the separations they hade made were also definitely 100% wrong.