Diversions‐ or a More Imaginative Than Rigorous Take on Some Psychiatric Diagnoses

ABSTRACT In the backdrop of systemic family therapists' engagement with critical perspectives on the meaning(s) of mental health and how these inform practice developments, this rendering is neither scientific nor systematic, but an invitation to exercise our imagination around our relationship with certain nomenclatures, diverting from the generally accepted definitions and uses (i.e., applications) of some mental health diagnoses. The invitation is to divert from a comprehensive intent of classification to aid diagnostic processes, without presenting this diversion as an alternative to such frameworks. I propose a few examples with a sense of lightness applied to words that tend to present themselves in conversations loaded with heavy meanings. Tourette syndrome, ASD, ADHD, depression, OCD and psychosis are explored here from the perspective of possibilities that the patterns receiving these names point at, if considered in relationship with other contextual levels, different from the ones normally connected to the way we make sense/meaning of them. I propose diverting in the way we make sense of these psychiatric labels, which is different from both correcting and adhering, moving away from lineal notions of progress when considering matters of change, development and growth.