|
Post by sleepwalker on Sept 21, 2015 7:58:28 GMT
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2015 8:54:06 GMT
The problem here is that what the experts say and how it is interpreted by the media and general public are two very different things. I find the critical views of experts to be very interesting and highly relevant. I would say I quite often agree with the criticism proposed by experts. But what I read is the nuanced view they are trying to present and which is lost on people who do not think about it carefully enough or lack the technical knowledge to understand it. It's not that the condition may not exist, it obviously does (I have it and love my meds), it's rather that we don't really know what we are dealing with. Not every hyperactive kid has ADHD, or is incapable of calming down. The problem I see is that the human brain continues to develop long after we are born and that the plasticity of this development is hardly ever acknowledged as playing a role in childhood ADHD and its treatment. I could write a book on this subject (maybe I should), but our understanding of ADHD and its treatment is still in its infancy and I'm sure that in the next few decades a lot of changes will take place that will reduce the amount of noise and improve focus on the real disorder. The main challenges will lie in the complexity of the brain (scientific/medical challenge) and our society's pathological need for quick fixes (cultural challenge).
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2015 9:18:03 GMT
It is based around the ideas of Sami Timimi, a UK Child Psychiatrist, who is critical of traditional psychiatric diagnosis in general, and of what he views as the wrongful medicalisation of childhood. He has long viewed the label of ADHD as a way of pathologising "male" behaviour and he is concerned that the rise in diagnosis of the condition in the UK represents a cynical victory of the pharmaceutical industry to expand the reach of its empire.
He is now also troubled by ADHD-PI, possibly goddamnit, because pesky, articulate women are jumping into the fray, and medicalising their own problems, and in so doing giving disturbing validity to the diagnosic label that he opposes.
Personally, I share some of Timimi's concerns about psychiatric labelling, and I do think it very worrying when drugs are used as a first line treatment for children, simply because we don't allocate sufficient resources to the therapeutic professions in child health.
I think Timini is rather too keen to chuck out the baby with the bath water though, and I think he makes himself ridiculous with his endless petitions and campaigns to "end psychiatric diagnosis".
I think there is much room for discussion in the middle ground, but it is polemic that sells newspapers, apparently, so what can we do?
|
|
jonbob
Member's posted somewhat
Posts: 64
|
Post by jonbob on Sept 21, 2015 9:33:03 GMT
I spoke briefly to the author the other day regarding the novel that he has written based on the 'drugging our youth' premise. A brief article in the Guardian talking about his work and his motivations to write 'Concentr8'. Let's just say that I was sufficiently concerned about the tone he was using about ADHD to seek him out. His response was to say 'wait until you read the article that I have written in the Independent', as if that would answer all of my concerns.
Sadly, none of my concerns have been answered.
Lot's of cries of 'Big Pharma', 'no proof', and 'a reason to scrounge benefits'. Doing little more than fanning the flames of prejudice and making the lives of those who have to live with the condition on a daily basis a little more difficult. Saying essentially 'it's a myth', does very little of any practical value to help those who have ADHD. If anything it has the opposite effect, as no doubt there will be some who have the condition now being faced with 'well I read this article in the Independent the other day and IT said etc, etc.'
In fairness, he does make some valid points, particularly around education. Though he hasn't really delved into that side of it sufficiently to put forward a rounded argument. Equally, he touched on the concept of ADHD becoming more of an issue due to the parameters of 'the norm' within society narrowing, but didn't really go to the lengths necessary there.
I agree with you last sentence particularly @dutch. The two main challenges you mentioned lie at the heart of what it means to struggle with ADHD. As you rightly said, quick fixes don't exist. That being said, there are no doubt some solutions that may be available - particularly in a child's early years - that could be implemented, but for a lack of time, money and resources from the state.
|
|
jonbob
Member's posted somewhat
Posts: 64
|
Post by jonbob on Sept 21, 2015 9:45:15 GMT
I think there is much room for discussion in the middle ground, but it is polemic that sells newspapers, apparently, so what can we do? Let's not forget that it's also polemic that helps to sell novels too. Given that the author has a new book on sale that uses the 'drugs to control our youth' trope as it's central premise.
|
|
eli77
Member's not posted much yet
Posts: 33
|
Post by eli77 on Sept 21, 2015 10:03:04 GMT
So for those who would insist that ADHD doesn't exist. What is the solution for people like me and other users of this forum who have experienced an impossibility to give enough focus and attention to learn and work adequately due to an overactive brain making it impossible to pin down just one thought or point of focus. for whom it is a constant occurrence to forget and lose things and simply cannot read a page in a book without the need to retrace several times. I've been this way for as long as I remember - being picked on and bullied by a teacher aged four cemented those memories. I would ask...what is the solution if not current ADHD treatment and life changing medication and what name or label would you justifiably give it if not ADHD?
|
|
jonbob
Member's posted somewhat
Posts: 64
|
Post by jonbob on Sept 21, 2015 10:05:10 GMT
So for those who would insist that ADHD doesn't exist. What is the solution for people like me and other users of this forum who have experienced an impossibility to give enough focus and attention to learn and work adequately, for whom it is a constant occurrence to forget and lose things and simply cannot read a page in a book without the need to retrace several times. I've been this way for as long as I remember - being picked on and bullied by a teacher aged four cemented those memories. I would ask...what is the solution if not current ADHD treatment and life changing medication and what name or label would you give it if not ADHD? This, this and a thousand times THIS!
|
|
|
Post by contrarymary on Sept 21, 2015 10:22:33 GMT
i read that article yesterday and was going to post a comment on its thread but didn't want to surrender my contacts & lots of personal details to the newspaper's privacy policy!
two things struck me. firstly, he and his sources talk about ADHD as having no (known) biological markers, and single it out for being a made-up diagnosis on this basis. they completely f***ing ignore the fact on this premise EVERY SINGLE PSYCHIATRIC LABEL is the same! it's simply not mentioned, and he blithely goes on with his very particular argument.
and secondly, he is writing this column to sell his book. he is not a medic, a medical writer, anyone with any serious background or qualification. he is a guy who has written a book because a chance conversation with a GP gave him an idea for a work of fiction and this has been written to market (sell) his product. that does not mean that his opionion is anything more than his opinion, his is being expressed to make money.
it's not a balanced piece, there are no new ideas, it's not even thoroughly researched. it is one side of an "argument", has missed out a huge amount of science and is written for commercial purposes. and so the trolls come out with their opinions, and still no-one looks at psychiatric labels in their entirety. would we have the same reaction to something denying psychosis? OCD? depression? ffs
|
|
jonbob
Member's posted somewhat
Posts: 64
|
Post by jonbob on Sept 21, 2015 10:38:00 GMT
i read that article yesterday and was going to post a comment on its thread but didn't want to surrender my contacts & lots of personal details to the newspaper's privacy policy! two things struck me. firstly, he and his sources talk about ADHD as having no (known) biological markers, and single it out for being a made-up diagnosis on this basis. they completely f***ing ignore the fact on this premise EVERY SINGLE PSYCHIATRIC LABEL is the same! it's simply not mentioned, and he blithely goes on with his very particular argument. and secondly, he is writing this column to sell his book. he is not a medic, a medical writer, anyone with any serious background or qualification. he is a guy who has written a book because a chance conversation with a GP gave him an idea for a work of fiction and this has been written to market (sell) his product. that does not mean that his opionion is anything more than his opinion, his is being expressed to make money. it's not a balanced piece, there are no new ideas, it's not even thoroughly researched. it is one side of an "argument", has missed out a huge amount of science and is written for commercial purposes. and so the trolls come out with their opinions, and still no-one looks at psychiatric labels in their entirety. would we have the same reaction to something denying psychosis? OCD? depression? ffs I'd even go so far as to say that it's articles like this which actively encourage ableism against people with MH issues. The little sprinkling of science from an 'expert' doing enough to further fuel the flames. FFS indeed.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2015 11:50:01 GMT
So for those who would insist that ADHD doesn't exist. What is the solution for people like me and other users of this forum who have experienced an impossibility to give enough focus and attention to learn and work adequately due to an overactive brain making it impossible to pin down just one thought or point of focus. for whom it is a constant occurrence to forget and lose things and simply cannot read a page in a book without the need to retrace several times. I've been this way for as long as I remember - being picked on and bullied by a teacher aged four cemented those memories. I would ask...what is the solution if not current ADHD treatment and life changing medication and what name or label would you justifiably give it if not ADHD? I do not think that the anti-psychiatry crowd are a homogeneous group. At times I find it almost comical to read between the lines of all the various personalities who gather together in online venues like madinamerica.com to plot to overthrow Big Pharma. But I guess that, in their own disparate ways most people who take to the internet to share their opinions are really just like us, looking to give expression to quite strongly held, and often deeply rooted beliefs. Some professionals would say that adults who identify with the label ADHD are simply dissatisfied with their achievements and are mistakenly seeking "performance" drugs to meet unrealistic ideals imposed by modern society. This seems to me to be the thrust of this recent BPS award-winning dissertation about the rise in the diagnosis of women with ADHD. www.roar.uel.ac.uk/3459/ I struggle with this view for many reasons, as I have expressed elsewhere. Some professionals hold the belief that our attention and other difficulties may well exist, but that they should be seen in the context of the individual and her environment, and not swiftly labelled as being evidence of a distinct "disease". Within this group, some recognise that labels can be helpful to individuals both to explain their condition and to point to treatment, and the preoccupation of this group seems to be mainly to ensure that patients are fully informed and properly educated about the risks as well as the benefits of medication, and aware as possible of all the other possible ways forward that don't necessarily involve drugs. Still others consider psychiatric drugs to be definitively wrong, and believe that service users who choose the medical route to be misinformed and a danger to themselves... It is because this group exists that I believe forums like this one to be a godsend in providing a space for intelligent discussion by those of us with inside knowledge of our own condition. Another important group of the anti-psychiatry crowd is made up not of professionals but of service users with various diagnoses, who have themselves had bad experiences and want to warn others away from what they perceive to be an inherently abusive psychiatric industry. I think these groups are hugely important and exist with very good reason pertaining to the treatment of specific disorders with drugs that have massively unpleasant unwanted effects. I think we can all learn from these groups, and their experience should cause us to ask hard questions of ourselves and our prescribers before beginning any course of medication. My personal view is that psychiatry is in many ways a genuinely problematic discipline, in that diagnosis is generally based on clinical interviews and other subjective criteria, rather than the more solid evidence provided by the more robust and scientific methods of say, neurology. And yet it is a discipline that supports a highly lucrative pharmaceutical industry. Psychiatry also has a problematic history, in which the "mentally ill" have traditionally been stigmatized and separated from mainstream society. Some diagnostic categories in particular, e.g. the so-called Personality Disorders, horrify me because they seem primarily to be labels imposed on patients to explain the difficulties experienced by those around the patient, rather than serving as a prima facie help for the patients themselves. I feel I have experienced a little of this myself, when it was suggested that my own complaint about the lack of ADHD services in my area may be due to an underlying paranoid personality disorder on my part. Psychiatry can be scary shit to deal with and, if my meds weren't proving helpful to me, I would be out of the door without a backwards glance. But the way I see it, and as others have said, psychiatry covers a very broad range of problems, and there are very many good psychiatrists who are working in good faith across the spectrum of conditions that are brought to clinical attention. And although the study of the condition that we now call ADHD is still in its infancy, many of us are experiencing life-changing benefits from the use of stimulant medication. Even among those who cannot or choose not to use meds, the identification of the condition by a name is of great benefit to us in understanding ourselves better and in finding like-minded others with whom we can explore new ways of resolving life-long problems. There is much useful research currently underway, and I suspect that it is precisely because of this clinical research progress, along with the fact that we adults are gaining strength as a service-user movement, that those with opposing views may be stepping up their efforts to invalidate our opinions. Pet theories are being challenged and toys are being thrown from prams in response to that, I suspect. And all of this presents a perfect opportunity for complete outsiders such as this writer and novelist to jump onto the bandwagon in order to promote his own interests. I think it is a shame that the media seeks to polarise the issues, because I think there is so much that we can contribute to the evolving dialogue around ADHD. Ironically, the main argument of those opposing the diagnosis of ADHD claim to be doing so "for the sake of the children". My view is that if adults with ADHD insist on raising their voices, then that can only be helpful in paving the way for children and young people to be helped to have their own voices heard in the great debate about the "drugging of children". That is something I would very much like to see happen. At the moment, funding and quality of children's services are piss-poor in many areas, and we have no strong sense of what it is like to be a child with attention difficulties, with or without medication. A survey of young people's experiences of living with ADHD would be very valuable, if the grown-ups on either side of the debate could tolerate such freedom of expression.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2015 14:41:08 GMT
My personal view is that psychiatry is in many ways a genuinely problematic discipline, in that diagnosis is generally based on clinical interviews and other subjective criteria, rather than the more solid evidence provided by the more robust and scientific methods of say, neurology. This is the key issue. Psychiatry deals with the pathology of the brain, which is expressed through the mind. We do however not yet have a good understanding of the brain, in fact quite the opposite, we barely understand it at all. Even worse is our understanding of the mind, which is a metaphysical concept and we don't really know what "the mind" is supposed to be and what its relationship is with the brain. Psychiatry is therefore necessarily a deeply flawed, haphazard, but also essential part of medicine. The problem (such as ADHD) is extremely complex and possibly even beyond our understanding, but we need to work with what we have to help those who need it. I think that is what a lot of vocal critics (the 'anti-' crowd) fail to grasp. They demand perfect solutions in an imperfect world, and when they don't get those they get angry.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2015 15:30:19 GMT
Well, Timimi frays my last nerve, but I do find value in some of the critical perspectives on psychiatry, and there is no single correct view, IMO. I'm glad that there is opposition to the power stronghold of psychiatry within mental health, in the same way I am glad for the back benches in the House of Commons. And I think that many of the more well-reasoned critics of tradititional psychiatry have much to offer, e.g., psychological perspectives to help us in navigating the imperfect world we live in, precisely because of the psychology profession's ability to recognise complexity and offer a more nuanced view than psychiatry alone can offer. Psychology seems quite split on the subject of ADHD but I don't discount the help it can provide, when it is properly focused on service user interests, rather than in simply providing a platform for self-promotion. I think even Sami Timimi has some valuable perspectives too, but they are unfortunately drowned out by the same infernal squeaky wheel he rolls out every time the media takes an interest. Of particular note in this episode of abhorrent attention-seeking behaviour is his statement that "In some cultures, children are loved unconditionally" which he contrasts to the situation in the West, where he perceives that " children are primarily valued for their achievements". To that, I say: Enough with the spiteful bullshit attempts to provoke inter-parental wars, Sami. Enough. Parents make tough choices every day, precisely because they love their children and are seeking the best for them. Sometimes people won't agree with you. Get over yourself and deal with how that makes you feel. But please don't get your rocks off by making cheap attacks at the expense of struggling families who are doing their best every day, right through the day and night when the doors of your clinic are closed. (What's that old joke about how to tell the difference between God and a psychiatrist? That's right, God doesn't think he's a psychiatrist...) I really would like to find a way to increase the strength of service user voices in the media debate. I struggle with the same issue contrarymary raised: how to take part in the debate without sacrificing my privacy. I am massively grateful to individuals like those who took part in the recent BBC programme who give us invaluable representation as a legitimate service user group.
|
|
|
Post by PrescriptionThug on Oct 2, 2015 0:25:58 GMT
So for those who would insist that ADHD doesn't exist. What is the solution for people like me and other users of this forum who have experienced an impossibility to give enough focus and attention to learn and work adequately due to an overactive brain making it impossible to pin down just one thought or point of focus. for whom it is a constant occurrence to forget and lose things and simply cannot read a page in a book without the need to retrace several times. I've been this way for as long as I remember - being picked on and bullied by a teacher aged four cemented those memories. I would ask...what is the solution if not current ADHD treatment and life changing medication and what name or label would you justifiably give it if not ADHD? Probably the same thing they did 50 years ago and prior. Chris Bell has a documentary coming out on this topic called "Prescription Thugs." I suggest you keep an eye out for a release (a few screenings were held so far).
|
|
jonbob
Member's posted somewhat
Posts: 64
|
Post by jonbob on Oct 2, 2015 5:47:29 GMT
So for those who would insist that ADHD doesn't exist. What is the solution for people like me and other users of this forum who have experienced an impossibility to give enough focus and attention to learn and work adequately due to an overactive brain making it impossible to pin down just one thought or point of focus. for whom it is a constant occurrence to forget and lose things and simply cannot read a page in a book without the need to retrace several times. I've been this way for as long as I remember - being picked on and bullied by a teacher aged four cemented those memories. I would ask...what is the solution if not current ADHD treatment and life changing medication and what name or label would you justifiably give it if not ADHD? Probably the same thing they did 50 years ago and prior. Chris Bell has a documentary coming out on this topic called "Prescription Thugs." I suggest you keep an eye out for a release (a few screenings were held so far). No. It's not about this topic at all. In fact, I'd go so so far as to say that what your pushing here could potentially be damaging to people on this forum.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2015 9:30:50 GMT
Hi everybody,
Is there the same skepticism and prejudice in other mental health illnesses? For example they say there is no medical proof of ADHD. Do these same people say there is no proof for bi polar? personality disorder? ocd? And why do they pick on ADHD?
It's quite upsetting.
Thanks
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2015 11:07:26 GMT
Don't feel insulted. The way ADHD is diagnosed is based on observation and testimony - nobody takes a sample away for testing or looks at an x-ray*. It's psychiatry and psychiatry has a bad name with the 'hard science' end of medicine. If you weren't aware ADHD was under consideration for splitting into two when they were researching for DSM5 - many of us would have had our label changed. Does it change anything? It shouldn't change the experience much. Symptoms remain symptoms. It's in the nature of science to question results - if the hypothesis can't stand the rigour of examination then it's not a good hypothesis. On those terms any questioning is good. What really matters if whether the non-science world listens and makes a judgement call of the basis of that questioning ie cherry picks convenient 'facts' to hang a funding plan on or disseminates part truths to the public, causing stigma. I could argue that ADHD doesn't exist (I don't think the label is very accurate) but it doesn't change the fact that the treatment I have received, due to that label, has been beneficial IMO. Outcome is everything. The real danger is in confirmation bias (I seriously recommend everyone reads the entire article), something that you should be very aware of when using a forum such as this (because it's very easy to fall into the 'me too' trap and not spot that the subject is not just relevant to us). Hanging a hypothesis on a flimsy framework and desperately trying to hang/form other material onto it is bad science. I think that program is barking - near neighbours to vaccine deniers. *ADHD is close to jumping from pure psychiatry to neurology ie a 'biological' method of diagnosing is getting close. It will shut a lot of naysayers up, but not all. Moonlandings, anyone? When that happens we wont be transferred to neurology unless they can treat the cause - the whole thing could be handled by robots if that were the case. Or even GPs
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2015 15:17:40 GMT
Thank you PlanetDave for answering my question. Very well put.
|
|