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Serious Inquiries Only

SIO385: What Exactly Is A Psychological Diagnosis?

Serious Inquiries Only

Thomas Smith

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.61.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2023

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

And perhaps more importantly, what ISN'T it? Lots of people are diagnosing themselves and others via social media these days, and you're never going to believe this, but they're not always doing it right. After far too long, we welcome back Dr. Alan Smerbeck to the show to discuss what exactly is a diagnosis in mental health and whether or not we give them too much weight. It's science, it's philosophy, it's a little personal too - you don't want to miss it!

Could be a product of long COVID or Stormy is just the best, but he's dialed freedom up a notch in Little Library advocacy - if you're up for it, please visit this link to submit your information and Dr. Smerbeck will set up an Amazon Wishlist just for you to help supply your neighborhood with "woke" books.  bit.ly/wokebooks

ALSO, if you have any questions for Stormy, drop them here! We're thinking of maybe doing a psych QnA! 

Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here!
Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to Series Inquiries only this is episode 385. I'm your host Thomas Smith

0:21.0

and I've got a fascinating one today. Today I'm joined by Dr. Alan Smurbeck, also known

0:26.4

as Stormy Desises, one of the best OA patron names ever. And we're going to talk about what it

0:32.3

means to be diagnosed with something which is more interesting, more fraught than it sounds, maybe,

0:39.8

at first blush. In this day and age of TikTok, psychiatry, people are self-diagnosing and diagnosing

0:48.4

others from a distance and all kinds of stuff. And there's a reason why we should kind of let the

0:53.5

professionals do it as much as we can, maybe. But with something like the autism spectrum or

1:00.2

certain other psychological diagnoses that one might have, it's interesting to think about,

1:05.8

well, what happens if you are just short of a diagnosis? What does that mean? I feel like

1:10.5

my brain wants to really make that a binary like either you have it or you don't for some reason.

1:15.6

But what is a diagnosis? How do we actually use it? How do Dr. By say, wait, how do doctors actually

1:21.0

use it? And what goes into it? All those interesting questions and more, we're going to get right over

1:26.1

to that. But before we do, as always, I want to ask you please consider supporting the show patreon.com slash

1:31.0

series pod lots of your friends have everybody cool is doing it. Why don't you do it? We've got

1:35.7

seriously alpha movies. If you haven't heard the Armageddon one, definitely go listen to that one.

1:39.7

Memento is forthcoming. It's in the edit bay right now coming at you soon. And of course, yet

1:45.4

don't have to hear the shitty auto ads. That's the best reason. So patreon.com slash series pod,

1:50.2

please support the show. And thank you so much to those who have already pledged that set. Let's

1:54.2

get on over to today's show. And I'm joined by stormy decisis Dr. Alan smurbeck bin far too long.

2:01.4

How you doing? I am doing much better after COVID stole my voice. Yeah, that are a sea witch.

2:08.5

I was unable to talk for several weeks. So I am back in action. Well, if I was trying to diagnose

2:15.3

whether it was COVID or a sea witch, have you been on any seafaring vessels lately? Would be a

...

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