system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
In the DSM, what marks mental illness as a spectrum (Aspergers, etc. changing to Autism Spectrum Disorder) compared to a mental illness classified in distinct categories (ADHD, Inattentive and Impulsive)? Likewise, how are mental illness seperated when there’s overlap in symptoms and comorbidities?

I’ve worked with children with developmental disabilities, and to say that autism spectrum disorder is a spectrum would be rather an understatement, as so many children so were so differently effected, they might as well have had completely different conditions. But similarly, with illnesses such as Histrionic and Borderline, and likewise with ADHD w/ Conduct Disorder and Antisocial Personality disorder, there is so much overlap between symptoms and circumstances that it’s difficult to really say where the line is. So how is this classification either helpful or conducive to anything?

Likewise, within many mental illnesses such as ADHD and Depression, the number of requirements to fill a given number of symptoms are less than the listed symptoms, so two individuals could not have any overlap in symptoms, and have the same diagnosis. How is this explained by psychologists and the DSM?
gpt
It's not about representing reality, it's about making it easier to apply a managerial structure or bureaucratic structure to the mind. 

Without some quantification, insurance won't cover it. Even with quantification, often insurance won't cover it, arbitrarily. 

It's ridiculous to apply numbers or quantification to a constantly changing dynamic system that is irrevocably enmeshed with its environment. The states of the stream of consciousness defy categorization. 

Rather than honestly reflect this reality and engage with it, the paradigm of the past century is that man has conformed nature to the will of man, and the mind is no different. There has been a series of popular movements predicated on atomized individualism and superficial beliefs in control. Scientific management, behaviorism, and various expressions of determinism like genetic determinism, and social determinism. Currently, this is all getting re-examined. 

The recent data over years of studies debunking the chemical imbalance theory of depression, accumulating data debunking the efficacy of CBT, and the overall replicability crisis of the past decade have illustrated that the ideologies guiding mental health are more about economics than our health. 

Man hasn't conquered nature. Everything we've done has been allowed by nature. All of our theories are provisional. None of them are accurate to reality, they are models. The DSM, in particular, reflects the excesses of managerial bureaucracy and its destructive effect on our understanding of reality. Much of the DSM is about deflecting focus on how managerial and neoliberal policies have had a negative impact on our mental health. For example, there was a lot of resistance to incorporating PTSD, because the patients who brought it to the attention were Vietnam veterans. It was a big fight to get it recognized because of the resistance to attribute any negative impact to the decisions of the people in power. The whole thing is an artifice that serves the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.