When a mental health professional assigns a diagnosis, it’s important to remember that this does not mean you now “have” this illness forever. Some people find it helpful to think of it as a “snapshot” of one point in time, knowing that months or years later, things may have changed and that diagnosis may no longer be accurate. For instance, generalized anxiety disorder, like all diagnoses, has very specific criteria that a client’s experience must meet in order to be given the diagnosis.