ADHD

On October 31, 2016, the very eminent psychiatrist Allen Frances, MD, architect of DSM-IV, published an article on his Psychology Today blog, Saving Normal. The article is titled DSM-5 Diagnoses In Kids Should Always Be Written In Pencil. (The piece also appeared on the Huffington Post Blog on the same date.) The subheading is “Mislabelling children and adolescents is frequent and can haunt them for life” As in many of Dr. Frances’s recent articles, the bulk of the text is written by someone else, and Dr. Frances provides an introduction and a summary/conclusion. In this case, the core of the article is written. by Juan Vasen and Gisela Untoiglich of Forum Infancias, an Argentine organization of mental health workers dedicated to the “proper diagnosis and treatment of children and adolescents”. ...

INTRODUCTION Earlier this year, Alan Schwarz, an investigative reporter for the New York Times, published his latest book: ADHD Nation. The blurb on the jacket states: "More than 1 in 7 American children get diagnosed with ADHD—three times what experts have said is appropriate—meaning that millions of kids are misdiagnosed and taking medications such as Adderall or Concerta for a psychiatric condition they probably do not have. The numbers rise every year. And still, many experts and drug companies deny any cause for concern. In fact, they say that adults and the rest of the world should embrace ADHD and that its medications will transform their lives. ...

INTRODUCTION On May 23, the very eminent psychiatrist Allen Frances, MD, published on the HuffPost blog an article titled Conclusive Proof ADHD is Overdiagnosed. The general theme, that various “mental illnesses” are being “overdiagnosed” is gaining popularity in recent years among some psychiatrists, presumably in an effort to distance themselves from the trend of psychiatric-drugs-on-demand-for-every-conceivable-human-problem that has become an escalating and undeniable feature of American psychiatric practice. The assertion in Dr. Frances’s title – that the label “ADHD” is being applied to too many people – is obviously true. But the implicit assumptions – that there is a correct level of such labeling, and that the label has some valid ontological significance – are emphatically false. But Dr. Frances affords no recognition to this aspect of the matter. ...

At the risk of stating the obvious, ADHD is not an illness. Rather, it is an unreliable and disempowering label for a loose collection of arbitrarily chosen and vaguely defined behaviors. ADHD has been avidly promoted as an illness by pharma-psychiatry for the purpose of selling stimulant drugs. In which endeavor, they have been phenomenally successful, but, as in other areas of psychiatry, the hoax is unraveling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...

On November 9, 2015, Allen Frances, MD, posted an interesting article on the Huffington Post’s Blog. The article is titled Why Are So Many College and High School Kids Abusing Adderall. The gist of the article is that the “excessive use of ADHD medication” is a more legitimate target for a war on drugs than the ongoing war with the drug cartels. The Huffington Post article is unusual, in that most of it is written by Gretchen LeFever Watson, PhD. Dr. Frances wrote the introduction, ending with “I have invited Dr Gretchen LeFever Watson, a clinical psychologist and public health researcher, to describe this growing problem.” Dr. Watson wrote the main body of the piece; and Dr. Frances finished up with some brief concluding remarks. ...

I imagine that everybody on this side of the issue knows by now that the eminent psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, Chief Psychiatrist at Columbia, and past President of the APA, called Robert Whitaker “a menace to society.” This outburst of petulance – the latest in a string of similar deprecations – occurred on April 26, 2015 during an interview with Michael Enright on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) radio’s “The Sunday Edition.” The grounds for Dr. Lieberman’s vituperation were that Robert had dared to challenge some of psychiatry’s most sacred tenets! ...

In recent years, we’ve seen an increasing number of articles and papers from psychiatrists in which they seem to be accepting at least some of the antipsychiatry criticisms, and appear interested in reforms. It is tempting to see this development as an indication of progress, but as in many aspects of life, things aren’t always what they seem. Last month (June 2015), The Lancet Psychiatry published a paper online in their Personal View series. The paper is titled Childhood: a suitable case for treatment?, and the authors are Ilina Singh and Simon Wessely. Dr. Singh is Professor of Science, Ethics & Society at King’s College London, and is cross-appointed to the Institute of Psychiatry. Dr. Wessely is professor of psychological medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, and President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. ...

I have recently read this book, and I think it would be extremely helpful for parents, teachers, and counselors who work with children in this area. Here are some quotes: "…ADHD [is] something that your child does rather than something that she has." "The first thing to realize is that while you and other adults see your child’s ADHD behavior as a problem to overcome, for your child, ADHD behavior holds solutions to the difficulties that he faces on a daily basis. When your child encounters adversity, ADHD behavior somehow mitigates the situation. When you identify what gives his ADHD behavior its staying power, you will have gained valuable insight into why such behavior repeats so frequently. You will also be taking a giant step forward in knowing how to eliminate it." ...

On February 26, 2015, The Lancet published online an article by Soren Dalsgaard et al titled Mortality in children, adolescents, and adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a nationwide cohort study. The article describes a Danish study that was designed to assess “ADHD-related mortality in a large cohort of Danish individuals.” The researchers describe their methods as follows: "By use of the Danish national registers, we followed up 1·92 million individuals, including 32 061 with ADHD, from their first birthday through to 2013. We estimated mortality rate ratios (MRRs), adjusted for calendar year, age, sex, family history of psychiatric disorders, maternal and paternal age, and parental educational and employment status, by Poisson regression, to compare individuals with and without ADHD." ...

Avery, a member of Penguin Group USA, has recently published A Disease Called Childhood, by Marilyn Wedge. Marilyn has a PhD in psychology and works as a family therapist. In 2014, fully 11% of American children had received a “diagnosis” of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is widely believed by these children, their parents, the press, the public, and government agencies, that this loose collection of vaguely defined behaviors constitutes an illness – specifically a chemical imbalance in the brain, which is corrected by stimulant drugs. ...