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DIY Diagnosis: The WORST Thing You Can Do

4 Nov 2024 · 1 min

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0:49

Amber Hollingsworth (creator/uploader) warns against armchair self-diagnosis and diagnosing others after consuming mental-health content online. She highlights common examples people misuse as labels (narcissism, bipolar disorder, addiction) and explains that confirmation bias — the tendency to seek information that fits preexisting beliefs — drives and worsens these misdiagnoses.

Chapters

I love the fact that there is all this mental health content out there. I mean, of course I do. I'm a mental health content creator. But like most things, there is a drawback to the situation. And one of the big drawbacks to the situation is the fact that sometimes people do this sort of like armchair psychologist diagnosing of themselves, but even more problematic of the people around them. We hear all the time, we read these blogs, we watch these videos, and they have. They talk about things like narcissism, things like bipolar disorder, things like addiction. And the problem comes in is that we humans naturally do something called confirmation bias. And basically, it's sort of a subconscious thing that we're doing. We're not purposely doing it, but we look for information that fits with what we already think.