When it comes to mental health and neurodivergence, we may need to rethink common parlance.

Terms currently used to describe population variation and those who require clinical support are the same.

Other dimensions, such as blood pressure and hypertension, use different terms to distinguish the extreme.

How many times does a clinician or researcher encounter friends, colleagues or members of the public saying “I’m depressed” or “I reckon I have ADHD”? Fairly often, I am guessing. This terminology is commonly used to describe a few days of low mood or a few symptoms or traits.

That phenomenon is not surprising given that mental health and neurodivergence lie along continua or dimensions in the general population; those who meet diagnostic criteria or require clinical support lie at one end of this dimension. There is much research to support this dimensional view of mental health and neurodivergence1,2.

Epidemiological and genetic studies of conditions such as anxiety3, depression4, and ADHD5 suggest that there are no clear-cut boundaries between population variation in symptoms and diagnosis. This is in terms of impacts on functioning and later adverse outcomes including health, social, educational outcomes and risks such as suicide. Genetic correlations between population symptom levels and diagnosis are high. Even for psychosis, early family and adoption studies observed that relatives of those with........

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