Understand the moment
A place to begin
Why does the same name for a difficulty not always describe the same experience?
A diagnosis alone does not tell us how a day unfolds or what follows strain. This lecture also considers rigidity, fluctuation and the ability to return, alongside diagnosis and personal history.
A conceptual framing from Flow HijackedDifferent diagnoses can share a geometry, and similar symptoms can emerge from different dynamics.
The Flow Hijacked lens
Flow Hijacked conceptual synthesis
Dynamical phenotype
A profile of compression, gain, switching, load and return that can vary within one diagnosis and overlap across several.
These pattern families are a proposed Flow Hijacked synthesis for inquiry and comparison. They are not an alternative diagnostic system.
What this lecture adds to the picture
It proposes dynamical families that can sit beside—not replace—established diagnosis.
Alongside someone
Understand more. Leave room for the person.
Similar symptoms are no reason to expect two people to respond or progress at the same pace.
You can ask whether this account fits their experience. Disagreement matters too, and your own needs and boundaries still have a place in the relationship.
From understanding to life
A question to take with you
What part of my experience is missing from the name given to my difficulty?
Think of one recent moment if that feels useful. Nothing has to be solved all at once, and there is no answer to submit.
More ideas for reflection and conversation
- Ask which dynamical pattern is active now.
- Keep diagnosis, mechanism and person on separate lines.
- Use overlap to widen inquiry, not to overclaim.
These are educational prompts, not a treatment plan or personal medical instructions.
When there is room for more
Lecture introduction
An introduction with an honest boundary.
A transdiagnostic map organizes suffering through compression, instability, excessive gain, rigid prediction, load and impaired return—while preserving diagnostic caution.
This is an introductory edition. A full lecture text and PDF are not currently available on this page.
Listen to the synopsis
CONNECT THE IDEASThe conceptual map and lecture poster
A conceptual illustration of the lecture. The shapes are not a brain scan, a personal measurement or a proven causal sequence.
One visual model
Six ways flow can become altered
The profile is descriptive and hypothesis-generating; it is not a diagnostic instrument.
Lecture poster
FLOW HIJACKED · 25
A Dynamical Taxonomy of Psychiatric Disorders
Different diagnoses can share a geometry, and similar symptoms can emerge from different dynamics.
Research anchors
Lineage, evidence and limits
Sources this page is thinking with
This is a focused set of sources doing conceptual work on the page, not a systematic review or exhaustive bibliography. The Research Library adds summaries, themes and cross-lecture links.
- Volkow, N. D., Koob, G. F. & McLellan, A. T. (2016).Neurobiologic advances from the brain disease model of addiction.New England Journal of Medicine, 374, 363–371.DOI ↗
- Trefethen, L. N., Trefethen, A. E., Reddy, S. C. & Driscoll, T. A. (1993).Hydrodynamic stability without eigenvalues.Science, 261(5121), 578–584.DOI ↗
- Durstewitz, D., Huys, Q. J. M. & Koppe, G. (2021).Psychiatric illnesses as disorders of network dynamics.Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 6(9), 865–876.DOI ↗
Citation does not imply that a source validates the complete Flow Hijacked synthesis.
AVAILABLE EDITIONS
What is available here
An introduction, concepts and questions for reflection. The complete edition is not yet available on this page.
FOLLOW THE THREAD
If another question has opened
Describing how suffering moves leads to a different question: what would count as more room to live?