I'm studying psychology at university, and I've studied it at school for four years.
No person who really understands psychology would run around making definitive judgements on people's mental condition on a website. There are a bunch of reason why we don't do this. Firstly, you can't make those judgements solely based on self-report, since self-report always has lots of biases associated with it (the umbrella term for these is inventively called "self-report bias"). In basic terms: people self-edit, so there's no way of knowing if the information you're basing the assessment on is accurate. This is even more of a problem if you're not conversing face-to-face, because people self-edit online more easily.
Secondly, it's considered unethical to both make those judgements publicly and unless the judgement is solicited by the person you are assessing. This is because, especially if someone is venerable like a lot of people asking for help here might be, they are more likely to cling onto what you say and place high importance on it compared to if they were not venerable. This multiplies the effect of your initial inaccuracy. Psychological evaluations are supposed to be private to avoid causing distress to the "patient" by publicise their condition, but this is a public site even if the usernames make us anonymous on the surface.
Anyone who does try to seriously evaluate someone online is ignorant about the potential problems with and dangers of what they're doing. Most of them probably mean well (although some just look for the praise and attention you get from looking clever and helpful), but you really shouldn't be doing it. If you think someone might have a problem, you should ask them to see a real-life professional even though they probably won't like hearing that.
Who is a psychologist here?
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I'm studying psychology at university, and I've studied it at school for four years.
No person who really understands psychology would run around making definitive judgements on people's mental condition on a website. There are a bunch of reason why we don't do this. Firstly, you can't make those judgements solely based on self-report, since self-report always has lots of biases associated with it (the umbrella term for these is inventively called "self-report bias"). In basic terms: people self-edit, so there's no way of knowing if the information you're basing the assessment on is accurate. This is even more of a problem if you're not conversing face-to-face, because people self-edit online more easily.
Secondly, it's considered unethical to both make those judgements publicly and unless the judgement is solicited by the person you are assessing. This is because, especially if someone is venerable like a lot of people asking for help here might be, they are more likely to cling onto what you say and place high importance on it compared to if they were not venerable. This multiplies the effect of your initial inaccuracy. Psychological evaluations are supposed to be private to avoid causing distress to the "patient" by publicise their condition, but this is a public site even if the usernames make us anonymous on the surface.
Anyone who does try to seriously evaluate someone online is ignorant about the potential problems with and dangers of what they're doing. Most of them probably mean well (although some just look for the praise and attention you get from looking clever and helpful), but you really shouldn't be doing it. If you think someone might have a problem, you should ask them to see a real-life professional even though they probably won't like hearing that.