Establishing the accuracy of self-diagnosis in psychiatry
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Self-diagnosis in psychiatry is where individuals diagnose themselves rather than rely upon official diagnosticians to supply a psychiatric diagnosis.The accuracy of self-diagnosis is a contested topic.In this paper, I outline what arguments are needed to see self-diagnosis as accurate and how different approaches to self-diagnosis require different arguments.I show how different arguments are required to justify accuracy for an autistic individual judging they are autistic compared to non-autistic individuals judging they are not autistic.Different arguments are required if a selfdiagnosing individual accepts or rejects official diagnostic criteria.Finally, different arguments are required depending upon whether diagnoses are seen as objective entities, the product of theoretical virtues or practically useful groupings.All these approaches require unique arguments to justify the accuracy of self-diagnosis.Identifying the required arguments for different approaches is a stepping stone toward establishing whether those arguments and which of those arguments can be successfully justified.
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The inclusion of neurodivergent people in the process of diagnosis or self-identified (only 2 out of 11 participants) is justified in that diagnosis is considered a privilege, with barriers to access psychiatric care such as lengthy wait times and administrative issues, especially for marginalised groups.
“The inclusion of neurodivergent people in the process of diagnosis or self-identified (only 2 out of 11 participants) is also justified in that diagnosis is considered a privilege, with barriers to access psychiatric care such as lengthy wait times and administrative issues (including the type of access labour discussed in this very work), especially for marginalised groups [8, 33, 44, 75].”
From Burnout by Design: How Digital Systems Overburden Neurodivergent Students in Higher Education (2025) · cites this paper as [33]
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Burnout by Design: How Digital Systems Overburden Neurodivergent Students in Higher Education
Tcherdakoff, N. A., Marshall, P., Dowthwaite, A., Bird, J., & Cox, A. L. (2025) · Proceedings of the 4th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work · doi:10.1145/3729176.3729193 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
“…out of 11 participants) is also justified in that diagnosis is considered a privilege, with barriers to access psychiatric care such as lengthy wait times and administrative issues (including the type of access labour discussed in this very work), especially for marginalised groups [8, 33, 44, 75].”
- Authors
- Fellowes, S.
- Affiliations
- Lancaster University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Fellowes, Sam
- ORCID
- Fellowes, Sam
- Venue
- Philosophical Psychology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2024-03-10
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 2542-2569
- ISSN
- 0951-5089 (ISSN-L)
- 1465-394X
- OpenAlex
- W4392658278
- Cited by
- 29
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 3
- FWCI
- 80.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Philosophical Psychology (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Keywords
- self-diagnosis, psychiatric diagnosis, diagnostic accuracy, autism spectrum disorder, theoretical virtues, self-knowledge
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