I recently went to a therapist for a few sessions because I wanted to talk through some major life changes with an unbiased third party. I have no diagnosed anxiety disorders, but I was told in our earlier meetings that he was going to “diagnose” me with something like “adjustment reaction with anxiety” (or put another way “difficulty working through change”) so that he could continue to see me. This isn’t the serious anxiety disorder that many people struggle with, but would almost certainly be lumped in to the category of “anxiety disorders.” This was apparently done mostly for paperwork reasons; I imagine somewhere on the backend someone might be asking why he’s providing therapy to someone who “doesn’t need therapy” without something entered in.

I still don’t have an anxiety disorder, but that diagnosis is going to be on my chart forever unless I go through a lengthy process to purge it. I’m not saying this is the way every doctor will do things, but it might explain some of the increased prevalence of “disorders” in the population.