If you have the symptoms of flu, you get treated for flu. But if you are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, you get treated for the symptoms, which can vary a lot. So why insist on an underlying “disorder”? What if it’s symptoms all the way down? “We diagnose depression when a patient has five out of nine symptoms. But all psychiatric disorders are hopelessly comorbid with each other. If someone meets criteria for one disorder, there’s a 50% chance they’ll have another one too