JOANNE JACOBS: Teaching kids the habits of anxious, depressed people isn’t working well.

For Generation Z, personalities are now defined as disorders, writes Freya India. In a 2024 survey, 72 percent of Gen-Z girls said “mental health challenges are an important part of my identity.”

Adults diagnosed with mild autism, ADHD, depression and other syndromes often feel better, writes Ellen Barry in the New York Times. But the relief at having a name for their challenges fades over time. They feel less self-blame, but also “greater pessimism about recovery.”

Young adults who were diagnosed with disorders such as depression and ADHD in their teens do slightly worse than those with similar symptoms who weren’t diagnosed, concludes a large study by Cliodhna O’Connor, an associate professor of psychology at University College Dublin. “After controlling for symptom severity and socio-demographic factors,” the study found “young adults who were diagnosed with depression in adolescence had worse depression symptoms later, despite getting treatment,” reports Barry. Those diagnosed with ADHD “had worse peer relationships, worse self-image and worse emotional well-being.” The diagnosis lowers expectations.

For a 15-year-old, a diagnosis can be a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” warns Suzanne O’Sullivan, an Irish neurologist, in The Age of Diagnosis.

For some diagnoses, such as neurodevelopmental disorders like A.D.H.D. or autism, there’s not [a] path to recovery, she told Barry. “Although you’re relieved to feel explained and you’ve found a tribe, you are now trapped into an illness through the way you conceptualize it as a biological inevitability.”

Earlier: 23 Percent Of American 17-Year-Old Boys Have An ADHD Diagnosis.