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If you are like most parents by now your child has received not one but two, three, four, even five different diagnosis. The indicator is actually quite simple: The longer your child is involved in the mental health field, the more diagnosis he is going to acquire. On average by the time families finally find the POST Institute their child has received five to seven different psychiatric diagnoses and may already be on between three and five different psychotropic medications.
The good news, when you finally have a diagnosis for your child it may give you a feeling of "finally I have answers!" This is common for most parents. A diagnosis is a label that represents a categorization of behaviors. It has been found that such behaviors are common among a certain category of children or adults thereby a label or diagnosis is the medical model perspective on what may be the cause, the behaviors, and other diagnosis to consider.
The bad news, a psychiatric diagnosis is merely that, just a diagnosis. It is not an indication of prognosis, gives no clear cut treatment protocol, and as Psychiatrist and Author Dorothy Otnow Lewis states, "A psychiatric diagnosis is usually a best guess. When you are given a multiple of diagnosis referred to as differential diagnoses, it's like saying, "I'm not for sure but this is my best guess!"
Common diagnoses that we see with our families include:
Reactive Attachment Disorder
Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Bi-Polar Oppositional Defiant Disorder
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Conduct Disorder
Depression Aspergers Disorder
Pervasive Developmental Disorder
And list goes on and on.
What do you need to know? In 1997 Taylor, et. al. cited in Alan Schores text Affect Regulation and the Development of the Self stated, "It is believed that 98% of all psychiatric disorders are due to affect dysregulation." In other words, one of the single greatest causes for psychiatric disorders is being stressed out. The Stress Model™ says, "All behavior arises from stress and in between the behavior and the stress is the presense of two primary emotions: Love or Fear. It is through the expression, processing, and understanding of the emotion that we can calm the stress and diminish the behavior.
That being said, hang on to your psychiatric labels for your child is that makes you feel better, but strive diligently in every moment to see their chronic states of stress and fear showing up in every moment driving the behaviors that are deemed abnormal. Additionally, work to see your own stress and fear especially in the midst of their behavioral challenges, because when experiencing the greatest degree of stress the truth is that any of us can have a psychiatric diagnosis! |
