Self-diagnosis is a constant phenomenon within the human psyche.

Every one of us has done it to some degree.

What is the primary reason for this ingrained psychological response?

Stubbornness, expectant cost, and mistrust of professionals all can play a role in this cycle.

Take the example of realising you have a skin condition. After extensive googling and comparing online pictures to your own condition, you assume you must have eczema. You go to the pharmacy and buy an ointment specifically created for eczema.

After applying the ointment for 7 days your condition remains the same. You may repeat this several times with various false remedies. These remedies may worsen your condition, or at the very least, leave you more out of pocket and time poor than you were before.

This cycle continues until you finally bite the bullet and go to the doctor or skin professional. Your condition is correctly diagnosed, you are a prescribed a solution tailored personally to you. Despite losing time and wasting money on something that would have never helped, your condition becomes better and the cycle of self-diagnosis it broken.

The simple fact is that it takes nine years to become a medical professional, and it takes only 30 seconds to Google your problem. It’s clear to see which solution and remedy will be more accurate and viable in the long run.

Self-diagnosis occurs within financial decisions as well. Many home owners decide to seek their own solutions to financial problems they do not fully understand, then face the hardship due to their solutions backfiring. Often people are left in a worse position than before by following misleading financial and investment strategies that are not tailored to themselves and their family.

It takes two to four years to become licenced to give accurate financial advice, more depending on which field of expertise someone chooses to conquer. With such a wide variety of both accurate and misleading advice online, is it really safe to do it alone?

And if the solution to the problem can be so easy and beneficial, then why do we self-diagnose to begin with?