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To quote Sarah above talking about one of her patients: "It was abundantly clear to me from our first session that she was very invested in her diagnoses"

If we allow a diagnosis to take the form of more of a description of a person's mental state (as opposed to healthy/ill) and remove value judgments like we have been discussing, I think a diagnosis, and yes I still want to use that particular term, can be extremely useful. If someone is seeking help because they are no longer able to understand themselves and how they can change themselves, a diagnosis of the form I suggest - one that helps a person recognize their behaviors and explain and understand what societal/mental forces might be causing them -might be extremely helpful in restoring a person's ability to understand themselves. The help-giver must of course be very careful not to apply value judgments, but so long as they are, I think someone seeking help for mental health troubles of our new definition can certainly benefit from a diagnosis. We just need to expand what a diagnosis can involve.