Labels Make Mental Illness Seem Unsurmountable

Mental distress and social difficulties are not really easily categorisable. The insistence of doctors at the best of Indian hospitals to diagnose and label OCD or Bipolar or Borderline may not always be in the best interests of the patients.

If the patient is not so seriously deficient, and can manage basic interactions and conversations and even a full time job, even though they might be suffering, labels may do more harm than good.

Helping them how to have interactive conversations, developing a world of interests and schedules and work and friends outside their head, simplifying and removing excess thought is much more helpful.

Helping them not to get paralyzed by the bewildering social mistakes they make but learn to love themselves and others.

Getting them exposed to simulations or scenarios in which they see people not rejecting each other after various social disturbances and disagreements.

Label such a person as OCD or Manic, and you're not really tackling the lack of social experience and skills which makes the disturbed person react with fear to small situations.

And as usual, to sign off, I talk about the wonderful work my friend Ananado Chatterjee is doing for no profit with the Hank Nunn Institute, named after Hank Nunn, a Canadian guy we all call dad.