Labels serve to separate humans from those perceived as different. Psychological and psychiatric diagnoses often function as subjective collections of symptoms without objective neurophysiological tests. Some medical labels, such as "broken femur," are specific and neutral, while others like "brain injury" are vague and carry pejorative connotations of unintelligence. Personal experience with closed head injury revealed resentment, diagnostic doubt tied to IQ scores, and a gradual loss of respect for knowledge and reasoning. The resulting unconscious bias assumes incapacity and immutability, confining recovery. Labeling prevalence has increased globally alongside medication use, prompting study of labeling consequences.
In the 1980s, one of my psychology professors at the University of Toronto advocated against using labels for psychological or psychiatric diagnoses. "Why not?" I questioned. "How else will we know what illness they have? Labels being bad sounds like psychological mumbo jumbo." By the end of that school year, I understood how labels stigmatize and limit recovery. Humans use labels to distinguish between themselves and those not like them.
Although I knew about that connotation at the time of my own closed head injury, aka traumatic brain injury or concussion, I was unprepared for the resentment toward me and the doubt in my diagnosis from my IQ measuring higher than average (although much lower than pre-injury); nor was I prepared for the slow devolution of respect in my knowledge and reasoning skills.
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