Categorizing Mental Illness?

An interesting question came up today from one of the therapists who lists groups at FindGroupTherapy.com -- he wanted to know if I would add a category called "Severe Mental Illness." I felt a little uncomfortable with this. I wanted to think about it first. I wondered, for instance, how will we define "severe" if we decide to add this category? And how do we prevent therapists from over-labeling certain disorders as severe, and listing them under this category?

I also wondered whether patients would be offended by this term. Or if therapists dealing with severely ill patients would propose other categories that are less pathologizing.

Or am I over-reacting to this term? I put the question out on a few mailing lists for mental health professionals and I'll be curious to see what kinds of responses I get! Subscribe to this blog to stay updated on this topic.

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