does the diagnosis really explain anything at all?

[harrietjansson]

I understand what you're saying. This is a common criticism of psychiatry. Diagnoses don't explain anything and they don't teach anything, they describe. Diagnoses are descriptions. The purpose of the description is to know which resource to direct you to and medications to prescribe. It also allows researchers to study the description under the umbrella of a single term.

Things with names are less scary. People here are saying they were relieved that they weren't broken necessarily, they just have this thing called "Autism." It's seen as a cause of those related behaviors, and when something has a cause, it feels less shameful and confusing. Rather than deal with ten disparate struggles, you think of all ten struggles as a single struggle, called Autism.

Another benefit is that it connects you with people who have similar struggles, as it has done for you in the case of this forum.

exactly! Thanks for writing this!
What I am refering to is the fact that there are many theories of asperger (or similar diagnoses). The diagnosis never told me why I had difficulties with certain situations. I had to read about theories and talk with people about it. The diagnosis did very little other than telling to talk about something called asperger's. I agree with you that what a diagnosis often do is asking you to see the symptoms as a whole which is good.

 

[harrietjansson]

The issue can't be treated correctly if the underlying cause is mistaken or is in doubt.

there are at so many theories of this. Many people talk about weak central coherence but other say that it is in fact true that many autistics have a good central coherence. Whom to trust? Who even know the causes of the symptoms?

 

[Crossbreed]

Whom to trust? Who even know the causes of the symptoms?

I take a "black box" approach to those kinds of unknowns, even if I cannot distill it down to specifics.

 

[harrietjansson]

I take a "black box" approach to those kinds of unknowns, even if I cannot distill it down to specifics.

What exactly do you mean?