Diagnosis Human offers a compelling alternative to the biomedical model of mental health as it's been promoted over the last thirty years—a model which says that mental distress is a problem of chemical imbalance, or brain chemistry. Biological psychiatry focuses on quantifying the "illness" by an almost exclusive focus on symptoms. In this model, symptoms are never good. They are always seen as a sign that something is wrong with that person, a sign of pathology that must be changed. People now have a name for what they "have" and receive a prescription for it.

What may appear as intractable individual problems, however, often aren't individual problems at all. This book reveals how many of these distressing emotional states are created by nearly invisible, intimate patterns in our relationships. Diagnosis Human invites listeners into the therapist's office to be part of family therapy sessions, where they can experience practically first-hand what these intimate relationship patterns look and feel like. The authors present cases of adults dealing with depression, couples who come to therapy reeling from the betrayal of an affair, families with kids diagnosed with ADHD, teenagers with anxiety, or young children with temper tantrums. Each therapy session invites listeners to sit in as observers as the case unfolds, sometimes in dramatic fashion.