written criteria versus social criteria
I think I feel the tension I described in my previous post because diagnosis, treatment, and acceptance are clearly outlined in diagnostic criteria and supplemented by newer research, but like so many other things, are informed by intuitive, socially shared implicit beliefs about what is “normal” and what is “not normal”. And whether someone is “normal” or “not normal” is supported by intuitive evaluation – quick impressions based on surface impressions.
Even though experience encourages me to know better, I still go in to mental health appointments expecting that what will happen will be based on explicit, often written, accumulated knowledge – I think I keep expecting authorities to do things the way I think is the “right” way, by evaluating deep (rather than surface) attributes against criteria and research.
And when they don’t, I fall apart. Because if I can’t trust authorities to know when their own intuitions aren’t right to apply, then no explicit knowledge means anything, because it takes place in a world of statements that doesn’t intersect with the world of actions. They run parallel to each other but don’t correspond, and the one that I can read properly is the world of statements.
