Autism

Our health, in all aspects, is in our own hands.

Finding a psychiatrist, general practitioner, oncologist, etc, who understands this and is interested in having a professional working relationship with their patients is the key to receiving tangible medicinal and therapeutic benefit from their expertise. The dehumanization and indignity common in that process isn't talked about enough and we're right to call attention to it and demand better.

There's a whole separate conversation about the industry of healthcare hidden in the subtext here (and so much more so if you're in the United States) but the principal is the same regardless. Expert diagnosticians can provide immense value when given appropriate tools and the space to use them. Capitalization and Industrialization mandate standardization which leaves little room for complex problem solving and edge cases.

I'm not arguing this excuses the constant malpractice. It doesn't because it can't. It can provide a framework for understanding and fighting back against its normalization though and I've found that helpful. At least in conversation.

Another aspect of this that I don't think is reducible in the same way is our proclivity for taxonomic coherence. I think it's one of our species' better qualities and that we let it drive us to premature conclusions about the rightness of the models we construct. The DSM is no exception. An effort may be well intentioned and still fall into the same traps and hurdles that bias and ego litter about. I'm not an anthropologist or historian but I have a pet theory that this phenomenon is also the root of delusion and dogma. We're adept at self-deception en masse. Doubly so when protecting our perceived identities to avoid social shame.