It's early evening on Wednesday in Engl 201A, and she has moved from the back of the class, in the corner, to up front, next to me. Lying on her desk is a Spanish-English dictionary.
The other students are throwing around the word "delusional" even though none of them are mental health professionals--none qualify as a psychiatrist or psychologist, and I doubt any of them consulted the DSM briefly before coming to class.
What's insulting is the ignorance and lack of sensitivity to the possibility that out of 30 students (which is very likely given 1 in 5 Americans experience mental illness in their lifetimes) that someone in that room might have actually been diagnosed as being delusional.
Even though I'm in and out of a psychiatric hospital several times a year, I still couldn't adequately define "delusional" and the symptom criteria necessary for such a diagnosis.
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