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The categories of mental disorders are too numerous and overlap so much to…

- - - - Is a choose-your-own adventure questionnaire really that reliable or even representative of a person?
  - - - First attempt to standardize diagnoses was by the military with the purpose of screening recruits, with the first DSM being published in 1952.
        
        If having many diagnoses is needed to fully define a person's symptoms, then it loses its meaning (if you have x, y, z, disorder, you don't really have a specific disorder).
        
        attempts to standardize were not very successful; Both DSM-I and DSM-II were largely ignored by the psychiatric community because the common belief was that a person’s illness came from their unique circumstances and internal conflicts, which isn't/can't be covered by a bunch of checkboxes.
        
        DSM-III made the checkboxes smaller by having 265 diagnoses, based not on causes but rather a checklist of symptoms that other patients also followed.
        
        Overconfidence in diagnoses can be dangerous
        
        Psychologists Caspi & Moffit looked for patterns across the many combinations of symptoms in ~1000 people over 40 years, rather than looking for a unique diagnosis for each patient.
        
        “P factor” sums up someone’s propensity to develop a mental illness across multiple domains. The higher someone’s “p” score, the worse they fare from childhood to adulthood.
        
        Barron inferred that Williams' P score is very high, but this does say what specific illness he has nor what medications he would benefit from.
      - One study reported that clinicians only agreed on a diagnosis 20% of the time.
    - - William had been hospitalized at least six times, always with hallucinations. Throughout his life, William counted a total of 35 months spent in a psychiatric hospital, with an average stay of just under six months.
        
        William, the person that Barron is screening in this anecdote, was showing symptoms of bipolar, but also depression, a mood disorder, etc.
        
        William has experienced depressive episodes as well as manic episodes (without the influence of drugs, though he had used drugs before).
      - Haldol, Thorazine, and risperidone are antipsychotics are often given to patients with thought disorders like schizophrenia and, less commonly, to patients with mood disorders like bipolar disorder