Month/Year of Graduation
5-2025
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science (B.S.)
First Advisor
Dr. Allison Schlosser
Abstract
This study investigated how clinical psychologists reasoned about and used diagnostic categories in practice. Diagnostic categories are limited and sometimes reductive systems of understanding people. They can also bring with them epistemic injustice, a type of wrong done to someone specifically in their capacity as a knower. In this case the concern is that a mental health diagnosis is a serious attack on a person’s credibility, wherein their experience is seen as less legitimate insofar as it is caused by an illness. Four semi-structured interviews were conducted with clinical psychologists. Psychologists generally described using diagnosis as one of many tools to understand their clients. They emphasized learning about their clients through the clinical relationship, through open and unjudgmental listening. In their theoretical thinking about diagnosis, clinicians pulled from multiple explanatory frameworks. Some explanatory frameworks, like biogenetic explanations, were used as a justification for pathologizing mental deviance, whereas others, for example psychosocial explanations, were used as reasons not to pathologize mental differences.
Recommended Citation
Eilers, Thomas, "Diagnostic Categories and Epistemic Injustice in Clinical Psychology" (2025). Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects. 353.
https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/university_honors_program/353