How much faith should you have in your teen’s mental health diagnosis? Exactly how does someone diagnose a mental health disorder like generalized anxiety, major depression, or bipolar disorder in a tween or teen? Who can make these diagnoses and upon what basis do they make these weighty decisions?

When we ask a professional to assess or evaluate our teen or tween for a possible mental health issue, we simply trust that they’ll give us the correct diagnosis – that they have the training, the experience and the knowledge necessary to consider (whatever it is they’re supposed to consider). But that’s not necessarily the case.

As a matter of fact, there are many experts who even question the validity and accuracy of the very tool they’re supposed to use to make such a diagnosis (the DSM-5-TR or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

Join me in this episode as I examine the fallibility of the mental health diagnosis and reveal what you can do to assure your teen or tween’s diagnosis is as accurate as it can be.

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Access transcript here.