Patients who self-diagnose can both hinder and help themselves.
For example, patients can help themselves when they acknowledge they have a problem and decide to see a psychologist. Patients who educate themselves on a disorder they might have can also help themselves to some extent, as long as they don’t also become narrow-minded.
A limited viewpoint and inability or unwillingness to collaborate with a psychologist or any other mental health professional or doctor are the worst scenarios when it comes to self-diagnosis.
Every psychologist will probably deal with at least one case of self-diagnosis, though the level can differ.
Larry Kubiak, a psychologist at Tallahassee Memorial Behavioral Health Center, said there has been a change in self-diagnosis over the years with an increase in resources like the Internet and more books. Patients who self-diagnosis are actually a common occurrence now.
“It used to be that you’d go to the doctor and the doctor was the all-powerful, all-knowing individual, and there wasn’t a lot of access to the common man in terms of diagnoses,” Kubiak said.
Using the Internet and books, patients can research their symptoms and even take pre-tests.
“On the one hand, it’s good that patients are more educated about what’s going on or taking more of a collaborative role in that process,” Kubiak said.
He said the major problem is when patients look at a few symptoms using unreliable resources and tests that aren’t generally credible and go to a physician or psychologist saying they have a certain problem and ask for medication when they don’t actually have that problem.
“Those symptoms could be common to a lot of other disorders as well,” Kubiak said. “In the mental health field, there are some symptoms that can cut across a lot of different potential diagnoses.”
Therefore, patients need to realize that a more thorough evaluation is necessary, including gathering history from the patient.
“Sometimes a person has something else going on, or there may be some comorbidity,” Kubiak said. “You may have ADHD but you also have an anxiety disorder, and if you only treat one of them, then you’re not getting all the benefits that you need.”
One example of self-diagnosis is a 50-year-old man or woman, whose parents or grandparents suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, who is now noticing memory loss and may have taken an online memory test that showed low results.
“They come in thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh. My parents had it, I’m starting to forget some things, I go into a room and don’t remember why I went in there,’” Kubiak said.
He said he can do a thorough evaluation of dementia or Alzheimer’s, though the only 100 percent accurate method is an autopsy, which is not ideal.
“I can point out to them, ‘No, you’re maybe experiencing what is referred to as age-related cognitive decline, but perhaps it’s exacerbated by this really high level of anxiety, sleep problems, the fact that you’re on a lot of medications for medical conditions that maybe you don’t need all of and those are affecting your memory,’” Kubiak said.
He said some of the more common disorders people self-diagnose for are ADD and ADHD, which is probably because a lot of people do have major or minor forms of concentration problems. However, stressful or sad situations can also cause these concentration problems.
Sometimes people can be stubborn about their initial self-diagnosis despite a psychologist giving another diagnosis.
“When I do an evaluation, I try to be as thorough as I possibly can and I try to come at it from a lot of different directions,” Kubiak said.
For example, he said he’ll do an interview and different tests.
“If they still have questions about that, I certainly can respect that and I would suggest to them that they get a second opinion,” Kubiak said. “You do that in medicine all the time, you certainly are welcome to do that in psychology and psychiatry.”
He said this does not offend him.
“None of us have a monopoly on the truth, we just try to do the best we can with the tools that we have,” Kubiak said. “We’re human, we can make mistakes.”
One interesting patient to deal with is an actual psychologist or psychiatrist.
“Obviously, if someone’s in the business of diagnosing…they probably are more likely to diagnose themselves,” Kubiak said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s more likely to be an accurate diagnosis because we all can have a little bit of blind spots when it comes to looking at ourselves.”
Mark Rohde, communications representative for the Arizona Psychological Association, said he specializes in addictive disorders in his private practice and so he sees a lot of people come in who think they have these types of disorders.
However, he also said many people identify themselves as having depression and sometimes bipolar disorder. Family members or significant others might be more likely to diagnose less socially acceptable disorders like Borderline Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
When a patient self-diagnoses and is incorrect, Rohde said he will go through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual to show them why they do not have a certain diagnosis and try to find an appropriate diagnosis if necessary.
The Internet is not always a bad thing and can be useful to increase an interest in behavioral health services.
"Sometimes when people come in and say, 'I think my son has Asperger's or I'm fearful that I may suffer from Trichotillomania,' frequently they are right," Rohde said. "Frequently an informed consumer is a more likely positive patient, positive outcome, because they're working on the same things that we are."
If a patient self-diagnoses and is correct, they will be even more sold on an accurate diagnosis.