The child has been diagnosed with depression, bipolar, and the parents are anxious? See these 3 truths and be free from fear!

When children suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, mood fluctuations, may not be well treated, many parents are also reduced to "half a patient", very worried about the child's condition and future. If parents go to the psychiatric department at this time, they are likely to be diagnosed with "anxiety disorder" as well.

However, when the child is sick, it is precisely when the parents need to give strength and provide rational judgment, if the parents also have a nervous breakdown, the child's recovery will be more difficult!

Therefore, parents should consciously reduce their anxiety, adjust their mental state, and remain rational. In fact, parents' anxiety and fear are likely to stem from a lack of scientific, comprehensive and in-depth understanding of "psychiatric diagnosis", especially in the following situations:

First, different doctors give different diagnoses to their children, and parents have always been very anxious about what kind of disease their child has, and may even wonder, does the child have several diseases at the same time?!

In fact, the current diagnosis and treatment model of psychiatry is mainly symptomatic diagnosis, as long as it meets the symptom standards, it can be diagnosed, which is inherently subjective and unstable.

For example, we met a patient Tan Xing, whose parents had taken him around to find a doctor, and saw many psychiatrists from the "four giants" of domestic psychiatry, including many very famous experts in China. But experts have made different diagnoses, and he has been diagnosed with paranoid mental disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorder, anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and so on.

In this regard, Tan Xing and his parents are very puzzled: which psychiatrist should I listen to? Among so many diagnoses, which ones are accurate and which ones may be misdiagnosed?

In fact, a patient has a different diagnosis, which does not necessarily mean a misdiagnosis. Because the patient's condition is dynamic, the symptoms shown at different stages are likely to be different, and different psychiatrists see different states of the patient, so the diagnosis may be different.

Not to mention different doctors, even if the patient sees the same doctor, but the doctor finds that the patient's symptoms have changed, it may change the diagnosis.

For example, many adolescent patients in the clinic initially have depressive symptoms and are diagnosed with depression. But after they leave school, they are very depressed at home, and the conflict with their parents intensifies, smashing things, and even hitting their parents, and they may be rediagnosed with bipolar disorder by psychiatrists when they return to the clinic.

Of course, we do not consider this condition to be bipolar disorder, which is still controversial in clinical practice. We are not saying that these psychiatrists are misdiagnosed, but we want to show that symptomatic diagnosis in mainstream psychiatry will have such limitations, only looking at the superficial symptoms, ignoring the psychosocial factors behind the symptoms. If symptoms change, the diagnosis often changes.

From this point of view, whether the child is diagnosed with depression or bipolar disorder with severe mental illness, it is only a "label" attached by a single discipline of psychiatry, and parents do not need to be overly anxious because of these superficial labels.

If parents want to help their children recover faster, the key is to see the psychological root cause behind the disease, especially effective "self-family therapy".

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Second, the diagnostic criteria of psychiatry are dynamically changing, and there is no permanent so-called "gold standard"!

At present, there are two most authoritative diagnostic systems in the world. One is the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) published by the American Psychiatric Association, and the other is the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) issued by WHO.

Moreover, relatively speaking, the DSM-5 is more authoritative than the ICD-11, and it can even be said that the latter is based on the former. In other words, most psychiatrists in the world refer to DSM-5 for diagnosis.

However, DSM's diagnosis and understanding of mental disorders is not static, and each version from DSM-1 to DSM-5 is changing.

For example, the DSM-5 expands the scope of diagnosis of "bipolar and related disorders." Patients who have had a major depressive episode but whose symptoms of a hypomanic/manic episode are atypical may also be diagnosed with "other specified bipolar and bipolar disorder."

In other words, some patients will not be diagnosed with bipolar disorder until the DSM-5 is enacted in 2013. But after the promulgation and implementation of DSM-5, overnight, they became bipolar disorder patients, which were originally just general mental and psychological disorders, and suddenly became a problem of "severe psychosis".

In fact, many scholars at home and abroad do not fully recognize DSM-5, or even hold a critical attitude. Therefore, there is no so-called "gold standard" for psychiatric diagnosis, and parents must learn to see the essence through the surface.

Third, many psychiatrists are prone to misdiagnosis and missed "complex post-traumatic stress disorder" (C-PTSD) and personality abnormalities, resulting in a lack of targeted treatment, and parents can preliminarily determine whether their children belong to this situation.

Nowadays, more and more psychiatrists have an understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and they will also strengthen their awareness of recognition in the clinic. But for a new diagnosis that has only been established in 2018, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), most psychiatrists still do not understand and are easy to ignore.

Some patients have suffered many and complex traumatic events from childhood to adulthood, and some traumatic events are relatively large. They have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as significant mood disorders, and are likely to have complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).

However, psychiatrists can easily misdiagnose these patients as treatment-resistant depression, bipolar disorder, or even schizophrenia, or PTSD comorbid depression/bipolar disorder.

For example, in a recent news incident, the parents of 13-year-old boy Lu Qing contacted a "rehabilitation" institution, and the staff of the agency "kidnapped" Lu Qing to a training school, where he underwent high-intensity physical training and corporal punishment, and a male instructor also sexually molested Lu Qing.

In this process, Lu Qing suffered a large number of superimposed psychological traumas, among which traumatic events such as sexual molestation were very serious. When he returned home, he developed pronounced emotional symptoms, as well as auditory hallucinations. He is likely to have complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).

But when he went to Wuhan University People's Hospital for treatment, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia! We have reservations about this diagnosis, and if it is really a misdiagnosis, this diagnosis will be very detrimental to Lu Qing and her family's rights protection.

There are also many adolescent patients diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder, who are likely to have personality abnormalities. If this problem is not discovered and dealt with, the child's condition is easy to recur due to personality abnormalities, which is one of the reasons why they cannot be cured for a long time.

However, many psychiatrists lack the awareness and ability to recognize personality abnormalities, and there is almost no personality diagnosis in domestic clinical psychiatry. In this case, it is very important that parents actively learn the science of personality abnormalities, identify whether the child may be in this situation and even know some ways to alleviate it.

Many patients' parents are very hesitant and desperate at first, but when they understand the efficient and scientific knowledge of accurate spiritual psychology, they have more information, and they see the problem more deeply and comprehensively, and they can naturally be free from fear and return to rationality.

And with the help of this knowledge, it is easier for parents to help their children find a "recovery roadmap" suitable for their children and families, and children can get out of the haze of disease faster and return to the normal growth track.