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 May 16, the New York Times ran an article titled Thousands of Toddlers Are Medicated for A.D.H.D., Report Finds, Raising Worries, by Alan Schwarz. Here is the opening sentence: "More than 10,000 American toddlers 2 or 3 years old are being medicated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder outside established pediatric guidelines, according to data presented on Friday by an official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." The CDC official is Susanna Visser, MS, DrPh, Acting Associate Director of Science for the Division of Human Development and Disability, and she was speaking at the annual Rosalyn Carter Georgia Mental Health Forum. I have not been able to find the text of Ms. Visser's speech. (It will probably be published later.) Meanwhile, there is a good deal of information in Alan Schwarz's article. Here are some more quotes: "The report, which found that toddlers covered by Medicaid are particularly prone to be put on medication such as Ritalin and Adderall, is among the first efforts to gauge the diagnosis of A.D.H.D. in children below age 4. Doctors at the Georgia Mental Health Forum at the Carter Center in Atlanta, where the data was presented, as well as several outside experts strongly criticized the use of medication in so many children that young." ...
The controversy surrounding Justina Pelletier and her family has expanded its scope in recent months, and has now become a general public scrutiny of Massachusetts’s Department of Children and Families. On April 29, State Governor Deval Patrick gave a press conference in which he announced the resignation of DCF Commissioner Olga Roche. I think there’s a very real risk of confusing some issues here. The sad fact is that, despite the enormous strides we have made as a society, there are still a great many children who are abused and neglected. Every state in the US has a social services department, one of whose statutory responsibilities is to investigate reports of abuse and/or neglect. The case workers who conduct the investigations are required to follow set procedures. Often they find that the allegation is unfounded, and the investigation is terminated. When they do find probable cause, they are required by law to present their findings to a judge, who scrutinizes the evidence in accordance with the normal judicial procedures. The social services department, the parents, and the child are usually represented by attorneys. ...
On April 1, 2014, Slate published an online article titled Mitochondrial Disease or Medical Child Abuse? The author is Brian Palmer. Slate is a daily, general interest web magazine, founded in 1996, that provides “analysis and commentary about politics, news, business, technology and culture,” and is a subsidiary of the Washington Post. Brian Palmer is Slate’s “chief explainer." As the title suggests, the article tries to explore the central question in Justina’s case: does she have mitochondrial disease or is she a victim of medical child abuse? The author does a good job of defining the various terms, unraveling the issues, and presenting both sides of the argument, though on balance he comes down in favor of Boston Children’s Hospital. Here are some quotes: ...
Justina Pelletier is the 15-year-old girl who is at the center of a dispute between her parents and the Psychiatry Department at Boston Children’s Hospital. Justina, who lived with her parents in Connecticut, had been diagnosed with mitochondrial disease, a rare and debilitating illness, and had been receiving treatment for this from Mark Korson, MD, Chief of Metabolism Services at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. In February of last year, Justina’s parents took her to Boston Children’s Hospital with flu-like symptoms. Dr. Korson had recommended an admission to Boston Children’s so that Justina could be seen by Alex Flores, MD, a gastrointestinal specialist who had recently transferred from Tufts to BCH. ...
On January 27, I posted Maternal Attachment in Infancy and Adult Mental Health. In this article I reviewed a longitudinal study by Fan et al. The main finding of the study was: “Infants who experience unsupportive maternal behavior at 8 months have an increased risk for developing psychological sequelae later in life.” In my article, I pointed out that the correlation between the low maternal attachment ratings and subsequent "mental health" issues was not perfect, so clearly this was not the only factor involved in the adult children's subsequent problems. But I also made the point that what we do as parents affects how our children function in adulthood. For me this is simply an obvious fact of life that tragically has been barred from discussion by the psychiatric mantra – that all significant problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behavior are genetic-linked brain illnesses, and that parents couldn’t have impacted the outcome one way or the other. ...
There's an interesting article by Angela Fan et al, in Comprehensive Psychiatry, October 28, 2013. It's titled Association between maternal behavior in infancy and adult mental health: A 30-year prospective study. The data for this investigation were gathered as part of a wider longitudinal study. PROCEDURE ...
Despite the general rise in economic indicators over the past year or two, there are still many young adults who, for economic reasons, have had to move back in with their parents. A proportion of these people become depressed. Depression is the normal human reaction to loss, disappointment, or a general sense of unfulfillment. Viewed in this light, it is not surprising that young people who have to move back in with their parents might be depressed. ...
If we’re happy to take some of the credit for our children’s successes, we should also accept a share of the responsibility when they don’t do so well. In the late 70’s, I met an elderly gentleman in a social context. I’ll call him James. He was in his early 80’s. We got to talking, and found that we had a good deal in common – primarily a love for the land, the forests, gardening, and just generally being active. ...
I recently wrote a post on postpartum depression which has generated a certain amount of negative comment. For this reason, I thought it might be helpful to clarify some points. DEFINITION AND EXPLANATIONS The DSM makes no mention of postpartum depression as such. The closest it comes is major depressive disorder with postpartum onset. In other words, the APA conceptualizes postpartum depression as ordinary major depression (which can incidentally range in severity from mild to severe) which happens to occur in the postpartum period. This is in marked contrast to the popular notion that postpartum depression is somehow a function of the postpartum woman’s hormones, and is fundamentally different from other forms of depression. ...