An unavoidable outcome of this, however, is that many people who, via the use of the resources they do have access to, end up figuring out their own diagnosis and what to do about it.

This is arguably just another manifestation of self-medicating, a practice that’s been around since before mainstream medicine.

Unfortunately, self-medication can often make matters worse. Consider how many addictions stem from someone desperate for relief from a pre-existing malady.

The point is, while self-diagnosis of mental health issues is both inevitable and in many cases essential, it’s often overlooked how, thanks to the way our brains work, it can have negative, harmful outcomes. Particularly in our modern technological world.

The difficulty of diagnosis

Experiencing a mental health issue is hard enough on its own, but not knowing what it is creates a great deal of uncertainty, which causes our brains considerable stress.

And stress is a key factor underlying many common mental health issues. So, anything that removes or reduces uncertainty can help alleviate the resultant stress.

A medical diagnosis is one way to achieve this. If the ensemble of debilitating thoughts or disruptive moods you’re experiencing suddenly has a name, and a range of specific criteria determined by the world’s leading experts, that’s reassuring. It can make people feel that their problems are both normal and understood.

But diagnosing a mental health condition is a tricky, complex process, even for trained professionals. Hence, when enthusiastic ‘armchair experts’ stick their oars in, it rarely ends well.

If people end up adapting and altering their behaviour to better deal with a mental health self-diagnosis, however it’s arrived at, that’s understandable. But what if that diagnosis is wrong? It may still provide a comforting relief from uncertainty, but any changes made based on it can make matters more confusing, if not actively worse.

For instance, someone may self-diagnose depression and subsequently persistently fight against, or ignore, their ‘irrational’ negative feelings. Makes sense, right?

But what if they’ve actually got bipolar disorder? Even trained professionals regularly misdiagnose that. And if there’s one thing that’ll make a manic episode worse, it’s suppressing any feeling that you’re doing something wrong.

That’s a very crude example, but the complex, variable nature of mental health disorders (and how effective interventions can be) means self-determined diagnoses and interventions could end up in any number of unhelpful places.

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Worst-case scenarios

Even with the best intentions, expecting someone with mental health issues but zero clinical training to be objective, thorough and rational, while wading through vast swathes of complex, often-conflicting information, in an attempt to self-diagnose, is a considerable, and unreasonable, ask.

Among other things, people will inevitably be prone to confirmation biases – even extensively trained clinicians are.

It means that, when searching for answers, information that matches what people want to hear, and/or what they already think, will be perceived as more ‘correct’. The self-diagnosis they end up with will be the result of such flawed analysis.

This won’t necessarily be a ‘positive’ bias. As anyone familiar with the ‘Doctor Google’ phenomenon will know, people self-diagnosing often gravitate towards a worst-case scenario.

This may stem from the typical brain’s inherent negativity bias, where negative or dangerous possibilities instinctively attract the most attention.

Our brains self-defence mechanisms are constantly looking for the greatest threats and risks. That’s why you latch on to ‘three weeks to live’ rather than ‘moderate allergic reaction’ when googling your symptoms.

Also, depression, the most common mental disorder, amplifies this negativity bias, so arriving at an unhelpful worst-case scenario self-diagnosis is an even more likely outcome.

Self-diagnosis, self-worth

Mental health stigma, while in decline, is still very much a thing, especially in certain less-liberal cultures or communities. Among other things, it means those experiencing mental health problems end up with less help and concern than they legitimately need, which exacerbates matters.

But as well as this, humans are intensely social creatures, meaning we find rejection psychologically painful and distressing, to the extent that it can make mental disorders and issues even worse.

Patient communities are an important aspect of the modern mental healthcare experience. One of the positives of the internet and social media is that they readily connect vulnerable and isolated people, who can now easily, and safely, share their experiences with like-minded folk who’ve gone through similar things. The benefits of this can’t be overstated.

But while such communities can be a vital lifeline in helping people deal with their condition, being part of a large, enthusiastic, like-minded group has weird effects on humans.

The group or community we feel part of most regularly becomes an integral part of our identity. But because we want to impress the others we identify with, we tend to amplify and exaggerate the qualities we have that the group approves of, so as to increase our status.

If we’re part of a weight-loss group, we work harder to lose the most weight. If we’re involved in a Star Wars fan community, we go out of our way to show that we love Star Wars the most.

Unfortunately, this can lead to irrational, even harmful extremes. There are countless examples online of prominent figures, from across the ideological and cultural spectrum, who went from being relatively normal to disgorging the most baffling or hateful views, thanks to years of constant reinforcement from their supporters and peers who agree with and encourage, and therefore reinforce, such things.

Mental health communities are just as vulnerable to this phenomenon as any others. Many will know of at least one person whose mental health issues have gone from ‘a problem they’d like to have addressed’ to ‘the main aspect of their identity’.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but it can lead to unhealthy places. Dismissing therapies or other interventions, exaggerating symptoms, setting a bad example to other vulnerable types. Who knows what else.

It can certainly muddy the waters further for those in vulnerable states looking for insight into their own potential issues. Thinking ‘This diagnosis would explain what I’m experiencing’ can be less persuasive than ‘This other diagnosis would mean I’m accepted and liked by this particular group’. And that’s not necessarily a better option.

History is rife with examples of mass psychogenic illness, where symptoms spread through a population, despite having no pathogen or organic cause. These usually take the form of physical disturbances (dancing, fainting, screaming, for example) and they occur exclusively in populations that are in close physical proximity.

Until now, it seems. Recent reports reveal a psychogenic phenomenon where young girls displayed Tourette’s-like tics, despite having none of the signature traits of Tourette’s.

The consensus is that the cause of these symptoms is actually TikTok, as many of the girls afflicted report having watched videos of influencers who claimed to have Tourette’s and displayed the traits.

Growing minds