Do You Care What Your Diagnosis Is?

[David Baxter PhD]

Do You Care What Your Diagnosis Is?
by Katherine Stone, Postpartum Progress
August 11, 2010

I heard from a Postpartum Progress reader who said that her doctor doesn't want to give her a diagnosis of postpartum depression. The doc said she doesn't like labels and was just going to call it depression -- that it didn't matter what "type" of depression it is, as I recall.

What do you think about that? I can see where the doc is coming from in that one doesn't want to focus too much on the negative side, but rather on getting back to where you need to be. Mental health, not mental illness. At the same time, as I said to this reader (hi, R!):

"I guess your doc may be right in a way that it probably doesn't matter exactly what the name of the illness is, except that I think women like interacting with other women with the same diagnosis. When you give it a name it makes it less powerful and it also let's you find other people who are feeling the same way."
​

For me, once I had the exact name of what was happening to me (postpartum OCD), I could do research, I could talk to other mamas with the same thing and I could explain better what was happening to me to others who didn't understand. I guess in a way I didn't want to be lumped in to the broader categories of "depression" or "anxiety" because I felt that having this illlness as a new mother had its own set of unique challenges and symptoms.

What do you think? Does it matter to you exactly what your diagnosis is (or was)?