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The Lack Of A Conclusive Mental Illness Test
While we are armed with the knowledge of the numerous mental problems that can affect people these days, the lack of a conclusive mental illness test can often mean that a person may not be getting the kind of help he needs or he may be misdiagnosed as having a mental problem when in fact he is not mentally ill.
The lack of a conclusive mental illness test for minor mental problems can sometimes mean that a person may be suffering from a few of the more common problems that might affect the human psyche but he does not get treatment for his problems since he does not know that he has it.
This lack of a true mental illness test can also mean that a person may suspect that he is ill but actually is not, and he might be getting medication for something that is not there.
Since most of the people who undergo a mental illness test often rely on the perception of the doctor of psychiatry they go to, the possibility of a misdiagnosis can still be rather high.
Even if a person studied all that is needed to graduate and become a doctor of psychiatry, the list of symptoms he sees in a patient can refer to one or another kind of mental problem.
The need for a conclusive mental illness test is there, and this is necessary because there are many cases of people getting the wrong diagnoses of mental problems, even with certified psychiatrists.
The reason behind the misdiagnosis of such mental problems may be due to the fact that most mental illnesses display similar or overlapping symptoms, and not having one or another symptom after a mental illness test may or may not mean that the person is indeed sick with the diagnosed mental problem.
The situation of being diagnosed with a mental illness that is not actually there can be avoided if there is a mental illness test that is conclusive enough to point out for certain which mental illness a person is suffering from.
A doctor usually tests a patient suspected of a particular mental problem with the help of a list of mental illnesses that have certain telltale symptoms attached to them.
The mental illness, its definition and the symptoms associated with it can be seen in the DSM or the manual that lists all known psychiatric and psychological disorders.
This is one of the things that a psychiatrist refers to when testing a patient, and since human judgment is not infallible and a lot of the symptoms that are listed in this manual are relevant to a few mental illnesses at the same time, the chances of misdiagnosis can be pretty high.