Mental health diagnosis has always been more than care, it's been a tool of state legibility. From the confinement of the "mad" in early asylums to the DSM's bureaucratic codes, diagnosis functions as a way to classify, control, and distribute resources. It opens access to support but also subjects people to surveillance, exclusion, and norm-enforcement. The need to "prove" pathology to gain accommodations is a hallmark of how the state demands legibility, often at the cost of autonomy. Mad pride and neurodivergent movements are resisting this, challenging the idea that distress must be state-approved to be real.
Mental health diagnosis has always been more than care, it's been a tool of state legibility. From the confinement of the "mad" in early asylums to the DSM's bureaucratic codes, diagnosis functions as a way to classify, control, and distribute resources. It opens access to support but also subjects people to surveillance, exclusion, and norm-enforcement. The need to "prove" pathology to gain accommodations is a hallmark of how the state demands legibility, often at the cost of autonomy. Mad pride and neurodivergent movements are resisting this, challenging the idea that distress must be state-approved to be real.