Why I stopped starting with diagnosis
Over years of therapy, coaching, supervision and research, I stopped believing most of the people I worked with were best understood by starting with diagnosis.
That does not mean diagnosis is always useless. It can sometimes be necessary, clarifying, or clinically important.
But as a guide to growth, I found it limited.
Diagnosis tends to ask:
What category does this belong to?
Development asks:
What capacities would this person ideally build next?
That shift changed everything for me.
Because once you start thinking developmentally, a person is no longer just “an anxious person”, “a depressed person”, “an avoidant person”, or “an ADHD person”.
They become a human being whose current difficulties may reflect missing, overloaded, or underdeveloped capacities.
That is a very different starting point.
It is also a much more hopeful one.
This is one of the core ideas behind PsycheVita:
not just questioning diagnostic language, but replacing it with a developmental roadmap for growth.
This is part of the wider PsycheVita story I’m sharing here.
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