Question

According to most reports, as many as 46% of Americans will be diagnosed with a psychological disorder during their lifetime. This figure does not include people with symptoms of a disorder who do not receive a diagnosis. Are psychological disorders being over-diagnosed? Have the criteria for psychological disorders become so broad that anyone can be seen as having a disorder?

Answer 1

One of the most important factors that leads many people to stress is the individualistic and materialistic culture that people have in America. The pleasure oriented and capitalist economy both make people more stressful and the broken family system further impacts individuals. Thus, when people are under too little connection with their environments and look to maximize individual benefits, they would undergo a huge amount of distress which would lead them to develop mild disorder at least for a time period. However, the number would be less for more severe disability. This would mean that lack of parental support, little or no attachment to family and unavailability of social institutions to provide timely help are some of the major reasons why people would undergo a period of disorder. When people do not have any serious commitment towards people, job or society, they would develop negative lifestyle that would contribute to the disorders apart from unemployment, poverty, lack of housing or healthcare etc. would also force people to undergo disorders. So, it's not an exaggerated number but in reality the number may be more.

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