The psychiatrist, by now, thoroughly flustered, and on the defensive, responded, Take your boy, get out of my office, and never come back. The young father did just that. Everyone at some time in their life has symptoms of one sort or another-chest pain, severe head pain, or a lump, that causes them mortal fear. You can do nothing but pick the best possible physician and trust that they will be competent and tell you the truth. The first and main part of diagnosis is to determine whether or not an abnormality is present.
Abnormality equals disease.
No abnormality-no disease. Treatment, when you and your physician come to that point, has as it s goal to make the abnormality normal, or, at least, more nearly normal. The happy thing about your initial symptom and the mortal fear it has begotten, is that a third to a half of all such patients are found to have no disease, and can be fully assured and returned to their normal life. Their treatment with drugs is rarely, if ever, appropriate, is never medically essential, and should never be coerced, forced, or ordered by any agent or agency of the government, least of all, by a public school personnel. Report on Mental Health of the Surgeon General, December 13, 1999.