Sunday Musings: On Social Media, Personalities and... "Disorders"

As human beings, we have a vast range of different personalities.

Some people are introverted, some people are extraverted; some people are gregarious, some people are reserved; some people are very intense, some people are very laid back. The list of possibilities seems almost endless.

Not so Pretty...?

Some of our personality traits are perhaps not the prettiest things we have. Perhaps we are unusually quick to anger, maybe we are perfectionistic, judgmental. Again, we could probably make a very long list.

Even though that last set has negative undertones — at least for some — we're still talking about things that by and large would be considered personality traits.

So each of us has this amazing "soup" of desirable and not-so-desirable characteristics. Perhaps we attain a certain level of self-awareness and actively work to emphasize the good, while keeping a careful watch on the bad.

Well, at least in theory...

The Disordered Life...

But when does a personality trait become a personality disorder?

With the advent of the Internet it seems like we suddenly have a world filled with armchair psychologists who are typically quick to diagnose people with "personality disorders" without really knowing what they're doing.

I'm not really faulting anyone there; it seems part and parcel of human nature that we try to sort things into groups that make sense to us. And that includes people and their behavior... as we relate to it. Reasonable, I suppose... but REALLY?

How often have you heard someone who has no particular background in psychology make broad based diagnostic statements like ”so-and-so is a narcissist,” or ”so and so is bipolar?”

Most of us have at one time or another. But what do we really know?

Having been part of various helping professions for many years I think it's fairly safe to say that something might be considered a "disorder" when it starts to substantially interfere with a person's ability to function and navigate their lives.

Maybe that sounds fairly obvious, But such a distinction can actually be fairly difficult to make.

The thing is, most of those armchair psychologists out there are basing their decisions and very limited interaction with the people they're claiming to "diagnose." And that really does nobody any favors... and pretty much ends up being little more that glorified finger pointing.

Arriving at a formal diagnosis is something that can take weeks and possibly months of regular interaction with a trained mental health professional.

What Am I REALLY Getting At?

Our personal biases and body of experience tend to instill in us a certain level of "cognitive blindness" in which we become surprisingly quick to label "traits" as a "disorder."

In our self-involved social media society, I see this particularly being applied to "narcissism."

If you were to take it from the "armchair psychologists," you'd virtually think that any person who has posted a selfie on twitter is a "narcissist." Well... maybe that's an exaggeration, but it does seem like that term gets slung about an awful lot. Yet — from a clinical perspective — the actual Narcissistic Personality Disorder applies to somewhere between 1/2% and 1% of the population!

Similarly, having more mood swings than you do does make your friend "Bipolar!"

So, What do I Know About it?

I know very little, and at the same time, I probably know more than most.

My observation is that we live in a world where we have all become very quick to "pathologize" almost anything that's a little out of the ordinary.

And what's sad is that a growing segment of mental health professionals who rely heavily on social media for visibility are actually becoming increasingly reliant on handing out diagnoses... where perhaps they shouldn't be.

There's an awful lot that we now label "disorders" that just 20-30 years ago was regarded as nothing more than part of the normal spectrum of human experience.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week ahead!

How about you? DO you think modern society is too quick to hand out diagnoses? Are too many people acting like "armchair psychologists?" Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20220822 00:25 PDT
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