All I have to say is thank you! I’ve seen this far too many times online where people seem to deny the idea that disorders (of any kind really) are a spectrum. Seen this a lot with ASPD, but it can be said for a lot of other disorders as well.
I think people don’t understand what it means when people say a disorder is a spectrum, and I can’t immediately fault them for it. From what I’ve seen people treat a spectrum as if EVERYONE is on it regardless if they have the disorder or not. That is not how it works though, when people say a disorder is a spectrum they are referring to how the disorder can present within the people who HAVE the disorder. While the idea of “you either have the disorder or you don’t” is not inherently false, it can be a big oversimplification of how it can present since it can assume that there only one concrete way a disorder can present.
Even the DSM acknowledges that disorders can be a spectrum. If you look at how they diagnose ASPD (I’ll use this as the example) there is a bit of wiggle room since you only need to meet 3 out of 7 of the criteria (of course assuming you meet the other requirements: History of Conduct Disorder, must be 18, and ruling out other disorders).
In this instance, two people can have ASPD while meeting the criteria in different ways. One person may only meet the minimum 3 while the other meets all 7. That’s the spectrum, not to mention how those behaviours present and how they meet the criteria can look different between individuals. Then there is also comorbid disorders which can make things more complex.
If disorders were as simple as you fit into the archetype then in my opinion psychology wouldn’t be struggling as much to diagnose people nor would there be much variation in how disorders present. But alas people aren’t simple, we are complex and so is how disorders present.
Wholly yap, sorry for the long ass message. I’m not even sure if I articulated myself well here and even with everything it still feels like Im only scratching the surface (T_T)
I just think this is something that should be explained and would be useful for more people to know about. If you have anything more to add or smth I got wrong feel free to correct me since I kinda just yapped lol.
i totally agree with what you said! dont worry about yapping. i feel like people either make it out to be too big of a spectrum or say theres no spectrum at all :”) obviously there must be certain symptoms present, but these can present differently in different people as well. peoples minds are very complex and oversimplifying it to “you either have it or you dont” is just idiotic.
