By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
What is?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.
Sometimes words don’t mean the same thing to all of us.
The fields of counseling, therapy, and psychiatry all have some common interests but we don’t always use the same words to describe the same thing. Add in related disciplines like psychology, substance abuse counseling, self-help, and life coaching, and the field has become a veritable tower of babble.
If you are struggling with, or in recovery from, a mental, emotional or behavioral disorder or if you have a problem with drugs and alcohol you may wonder what the words you hear mean. Many of the people who arrive at the counselorssoapbox.com blog have used a search term looking for information or trying to find out what a particular disorder or treatment word means.
Students in the classes I teach and sometimes the interns also, appear to grasp the concept but then come time for the test and they miss things I thought they knew. Recently I have gone to ending many nights class with a slide about the words, possibly new words, that were used in that night’s lesson.
It occurred to me that it might be helpful to explain some of the terms that professionals, researchers, self-help writers, and recovering people use. As time permits there will be posts about all these and other topics.
Not everyone agrees on the definitions of these terms. Some of the labels we use come from the American Psychological Associations book Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM.) The most recent version of this book is the DSM-5. Another source of labels used in the mental health and related fields is the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases. The most recent edition of this would be the ICD-10. The ICD-11 will be on the scene soon.
Descriptions of terms that will be in this counselorssoapbox.com What is — a group of posts will be my “plain language” versions of these ideas.
The plan to describe and discuss things from the simplest possible perspective so I will paraphrase or use metaphors to explain what I am talking about. For the full text that defines mental illness see the appropriate manual.
Writing all these posts will take me some time but then you were expecting that weren’t you? This group of posts will not necessarily be in alphabetic or any other particular order. I write them as the muse strikes.
As always, comments are welcome, some end up being the basis for future posts. Remember there is only one of me and that I write during that rare period known as “spare time” therefore some comments will get faster replies than others. My goal is to respond to all of you eventually.
If you made it to here, thanks so much for being such a dedicated reader.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
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