Overpathologizing Human Experience

In The Book of Woe, Greenberg asks one of the psychiatrists he interviews why it is not a good idea to overpathologize human experience.

Of course, that got me thinking about simply pathologizing human experience and where the notion that experiences are diseases comes from?

I looked up disease (and am quoting wikipedia):

Noun

A disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, esp. one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not a result of physical injury A particular quality, habit, or disposition regarded as adversely affecting a person or group of people But I also found this article in Nature, What is a Disease In the article, the author quotes the WHO as saying that health is complete physical, mental and social well-being, which would suggest that none of us are healthy. Clearly that definition is not particularly useful even as an aspirational definition.  If people imagine that the lack of complete physical, mental and social well being means they are not healthy, we can wonder how much this unrealistic goal contributes to our notions of illness. But the issue I found myself toying with was the idea that disease, whatever it is, must be cured and that "health" whatever it is is the goal, and I wonder, at all costs? or what cost? (Let me just insert some thoughts here that arose as I was reading The Bonobo and The Atheist where De Waal emphasizes the importance of altruism being "productive", which reminded me of how much we view decision making that is not aimed at goals like "productivity or happiness" as "poor" decisions. If I pursue a path that will lead me to die earlier than a different path, does it mean that path is "necessarily" the wrong one?) If some diseases are not curable (or aren't even diseases in the first place but something else and not problems in living either but rather something more akin to facts of life) would we be better served in at least challenging the cure metaphor with one of comfort? How do we increase comfort of those who are discomfited? Okay, so discomfited sounds like you are wearing an itchy suit and is perhaps not a strong enough word for someone feeling suicidal but the point still seems worth considering.   To what extent are our feelings of "dis-ease" at least partially a consequence of a society that so strongly emphasizes ease, defined as physical, mental and social well being? And are there reasons that we cannot collect enough data to make any reasonable conclusions about mental illness (forget for a bit physical illness) that strongly support the notion that such an endeavor is not possible? That the paradigm of mental illness needs a radically redefined perspective? Maybe "mental illness" is not analogous to physical?  And even if it is, maybe it is not subject to measurement and evaluation with any conclusive clarity.   How would we be different if instead of developing a DSM V, we threw out the book and started over? Is there some other way of approaching human being? Our response to physical illness though seems to have evolved from this same very strong belief that the first and most important thing is to keep us healthy, no matter what the cost (I think here of the Emperor of all Maladies and its excruciatingly painful foray into cancer treatment). At what cost? I don't mean economic at all but spiritual  mental and even physical cost. What if quality of the life lived were put before longevity?  Would it change our approach to dis-ease?