I honestly have the impression that we agree on pretty much all points here but that we’re talking past each other. I agree to pretty much everything you’re saying, and I’m all for helping as many people as possible live as good lives as possible.

What I’m trying to say is basically that problematising the large volume of (and increase in) psychological diagnoses can be valid, and doesn’t have to be founded in trying to downplay those diagnoses. To take a very concrete example: Kids that are disposed to growing very short or tall can be offered growth (blocking) hormones, such that they grow to a “more normal” height. Today, very few kids are offered, or take, these hormones. Now, let’s say some area suddenly saw a rapid increase where 20 % of kids needed growth hormones to grow to “ordinary” height. I would say that we need to figure out what has happened: Is there something about the environment that has caused stunted growth to become ver common? Has the window for what is “normal” gotten narrower?

Of course, in this example, it’s very was to compare to historical records of human height. The same isn’t true for mental disorders. That doesn’t mean the same discussion isn’t worth having- at its core, this is a discussion about how we can make society as good as possible for as many as possible. That also involves discussing what should be treated as a disorder that disproportionately makes people’s life objectively worse, and what is within the “normal” range that we should rather build society around accepting.