Maybe you never got along with your little brother or sister. Perhaps numbers make your stomach turn, or maybe you drink a bit too much coffee for your own good.
If you're like most people, none of these situations poses a real threat to your daily routine. But take any of these situations and imagine them magnified exponentially. Suddenly, you're dealing with Sibling Rivalry Disorder, Mathematics Disorder or one of any number of Caffeine-Related Disorders.
Like some of the other diagnoses on this list, these conditions appear in one form or another in the DSM. And Kupfer says there is a good reason for including them; specifically, he says these collections of symptoms can often cause a certain level of personal distress or impairment -- the very definition of a disorder.
"In a way, what we are looking for is to diagnose things reliably to allow individuals to seek treatment," Kupfer says.
With regard to Sibling Rivalry Disorder, treatment can mean counseling that could solve family problems or prevent future psychological conditions. Teaching someone to cope with caffeine abuse may save them from sleep-related problems. It is in these situations, Kupfer says, that labeling such conditions as disorders is helpful.
But Hadler cautions that labeling can also have its downsides.
"A label will always change your self perception," he says. "Sometimes it elicits a positive change, sometimes a negative one."
And as far as Mathematics Disorder goes, most are skeptical that receiving such a diagnosis will get you much pity from your teachers.
"Would anybody actually say, 'I have math disorder and I'm getting treatment, and that's why I'm not successful'?" asks Dr. Dost Ongur, clinical director of the schizophrenia and bipolar disorder program at Harvard University's McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. "No, you would never get something like that. Math disorder is not like diabetes."
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