Sign of bad character or character dissorder, or, mis-diagnosed ADD??

[havNfun]

I stumbled upon this article on the net. Perhaps it is just me, but, a lot of these traits, that this doctor points to as traits that define a person of bad character, or having a character disorder, seem to be ADD symptoms. I can only imagine how damaging it would have been for me, when I got help for ADD, if my doctor had diagnosed me like this list portrays: as a man with a "character" disorder, and not a treat-able chemical disorder. I have been able to overcome most of the behaviors that I had - many are listed here - with treatment. One of the main reasons why I have been able to change for the better, is that I finally was helped to gain an understanding of why I behaved in certain ways and why I was having certain problems. It also helped that I could pinpoint a reason for my behaviors that, at least in part, was a physically related cause and not purely rooted in inherent aspects of my natural character. Before treatment, I had a lot of negative thoughts about myself, and, attributed all of my actions as being mistakes resulting from some sort of bad or deficient character. It is amazing how, with additional knowledge and chemical balance, I have been helped to unfolded my previous actions so that I could see how they all inter-related and stemmed from ADD. I am posting this thread to see if it is just me, or, does anyone else with knowledge of ADD think that this doctor's list of bad character traits seems like an ADD checklist - as opposed to signs of a Character Disorder. I feel this list is not only a negative approach to treating a patient, but maybe evidence that this doctor is mis-diagnosing. I can't imagine how much worse off I would be now if I had went to a doctor like this who basically told me that I have a "character disorder" and just need to develop better "character." I would have perhaps felt like a bad person for life. This would have been pretty ironic, as I was chosen to give the speech on "character," way back when, for my highschool's National Honor Society's induction ceremony. This doctor even recommend "avoiding" people with such traits.

 

moimeme or anyone else out there that has ever dealt with ADD, do you see any connection to this list of behaviors and ADD?

 

Thanks

(the remaining text is that of Kent Griffiths)

[BlueLP]

I think the overlap you are referring to is because ADD is often comorbid with other disorders.....people with ADD are more likely to experience other co-existing emotional difficulties, although the two are separate entities.

 

You are right that this doctor seems a bit pathologizing....first of all, it seems like he has collapsed what are known as "personality disorders" into a common grab bag of symptoms under the term "character disorder".....but he has so many symtpoms there that we probably could all identify some of them that we each have.

 

Second, he isn't clear that each symptom needs to reach a level that it is causing severe distress or impairment...because we all have different reactions to different people and situations which may fall under some of his "symptoms" but which are completely healthy and adaptive.

 

A personality disorder is more complex than just looking at a list and identifying symtpoms. It is a persistent, and consistent pattern of interacting with others which causes a person or others distress and impairment. There are specific patterns which we identify, you might have heard of borderline PD, obsessive PD, antisocial, PD, etc.

 

But I think good clinicians and others tend to stay away from using labels like these or "character disorder" because they place an unfair burden and connotation on the person experiencing these interpersonal problems. While they are sometimes difficult patterns to change, it can be done, so labeling a person implies unfairly that there is something broken in them that cannot be changed.

 

Just my thoughts.

[havNfun]

Blue,

Thank you for your thoughts. Yes, can you imagine if this doctor was counseling a married couple, and, if one of the two did have actual ADD - instead of identifying it and perhaps prescribing some medication as part of the process, he only identified that "well, the problem is - one of you has a 'Character Disorder'."

 

Question for blue:

Do you know if ADD is officially, or classified as, a "Character Disorder?"

 

thanks

 

havNfun

[BlueLP]

No, ADD is a separate diagnosis from a personality disorder, or a "character disorder" in this guy's terms. Different things.

[moimeme]

There is a slim possibility that humans without genuine mental ailments might display these characteristics but I doubt it.

 

This man has a degree in social work, not psychology, psychiatry, nor neuropsychology or neuropsychiatry nor any of the other professional designations which mean he would have been trained in the physiology of the brain.

 

Sadly, there are still a lot of professionals in health care who have not gained professional education about AD/HD. This guy has been in practice for 25 years. Most of the science on AD/HD is current from the late 90s and too many professionals don't get professional upgrading training.

 

And it is precisely that creatures like this attribute those symptoms to flawed character which causes people with AD/HD to not realize that they have a genuine ailment and those around them to think they have a 'fake' disease and are 'making up excuses' for their behaviour.

 

Don't let the idiots get you down, Hav'n Fun. Send them all the links to chadd.org and add.org and the Amen clinic. Educate anybody you find who's still trying to promote their antiquated ideas and try to catch them up to modern science. Some will resist but a lot of this problem is due to the fact that people have not been educated.

Yes, can you imagine if this doctor was counseling a married couple, and, if one of the two did have actual ADD - instead of identifying it and perhaps prescribing some medication as part of the process, he only identified that "well, the problem is - one of you has a 'Character Disorder'."

 

Exactly. Even Dr. Phil has done this. There is still a HUGE amount of education needed - not only of the public but of professionals who deal with the public.

[Elmo]

Originally posted by BlueLP

I think the overlap you are referring to is because ADD is often comorbid with other disorders.....people with ADD are more likely to experience other co-existing emotional difficulties, although the two are separate entities.

 

You are right that this doctor seems a bit pathologizing....first of all, it seems like he has collapsed what are known as "personality disorders" into a common grab bag of symptoms under the term "character disorder".....but he has so many symtpoms there that we probably could all identify some of them that we each have.

 

Second, he isn't clear that each symptom needs to reach a level that it is causing severe distress or impairment...because we all have different reactions to different people and situations which may fall under some of his "symptoms" but which are completely healthy and adaptive.

 

A personality disorder is more complex than just looking at a list and identifying symtpoms. It is a persistent, and consistent pattern of interacting with others which causes a person or others distress and impairment. There are specific patterns which we identify, you might have heard of borderline PD, obsessive PD, antisocial, PD, etc.

 

But I think good clinicians and others tend to stay away from using labels like these or "character disorder" because they place an unfair burden and connotation on the person experiencing these interpersonal problems. While they are sometimes difficult patterns to change, it can be done, so labeling a person implies unfairly that there is something broken in them that cannot be changed.

 

Just my thoughts.

 

Couldn't have said it better. Great post.

[havNfun]

Exactly. Even Dr. Phil has done this. There is still a HUGE amount of education needed - not only of the public but of professionals who deal with the public.

 

EXACTLY!!

 

I was hoping you were around M to comment on this. Dr. Phil is a HUGE offender. I once saw a show where this nice young girl was addicted to those legal white speed pills (perhaps for asma or something). Anyway, she soooo clearly was suffering from AD/HD. Instead of identifying this, Dr. Phil treated her like a drug addict. She used the pills totally for focus and college work - she was clearly not a partier and wasn't taking them for a kick. When I saw this it made me really angry that Dr. Phil was so off the mark and irresponsible.

 

Also,

And it is precisely that creatures like this attribute those symptoms to flawed character which causes people with AD/HD to not realize that they have a genuine ailment and those around them to think they have a 'fake' disease

 

exactly. this is the crux of why I posted this. I have been bothered by this article since I found it. If I had thought that my behavior was attributed to an inherent, perminant, flawed character, I would have not taken the steps I have in order to change. And, importantly, I would not have become a much happier person.

[clearasday]

What you need to understand is that mental health "disorders" are actually voted on.

 

As for the history of the ADD / ADHD label, the makers of Ritalin created the drug, then contacted psychiatrists and asked them to come up with a disorder that the drug could be used for! Then the American Psychiatric Association, at their meeting, VOTED whether to name ADD/ADHD as an official "illness" or not.

 

No other branch of medicine votes on whether a condition is a real disease or not.

 

This makes the delineation of one "mental illness" and another very vague sometimes.

 

Another difficulty in understanding what is or is not a disease, is that most of these illnesses have NO laboratory tests. There are theories - but if you ask your doctor what lab test he ran to determine your ADHD, I think he'll be taken aback. There ARE no lab tests. No x-rays or blood tests, etc.

 

If you have a broken limb, diabetes, cancer, hypothyroidism, etc., there are lab tests and actual concrete, physical evidence of the problem.

 

In the psychiatric world, it's behavior, ideas, etc., and many things that can be considered quite normal are classified as illnesses.

 

Did you know that there is a psychiatric "illness" called "Math Disorder"? It's for kids who have trouble with math. There is also one for "Reading Disorder" for - you guessed it - kids who trouble reading.

 

This isn't very scientific sounding, is it?

 

In actuality, the SYMPTOMS of ADD/ADHD are often caused by other - verifiable by lab tests - conditions. Such as allergies, malnutrition, blood sugar conditions, hormonal imbalances, toxins, etc. Thus, the ADD/ADHD is often just a symptom of another problem.

 

I know a woman who was declared insane and locked up in a psychiatric hospital and drugged, soon after giving birth. The psychiatrist deemed her hallucinatory and paranoid.

 

Her husband pretty much snuck her out of there and took her to an MD who diagnosed her with a severe case of hyperthyroidism - not entirely out of the question as she'd just given birth. With PROPER treatment, she was cured of all symptoms. The psychiatrist would have kept her locked up and drugged until her insurance ran out, without the husband's interference.

 

There is an excellent book "A Dose of Sanity" by a neuropsychiatrist named Walker, whom I had the good fortune of speaking with once. He also wrote "The Hyperactivity Hoax."

 

He recommends researching further when patients have psychiatric SYMPTOMS and finding the underlying true medical condition that is causing the mental SYMPTOMS.

[BlueLP]

What you need to understand is that mental health "disorders" are actually voted on.

 

As for the history of the ADD / ADHD label, the makers of Ritalin created the drug, then contacted psychiatrists and asked them to come up with a disorder that the drug could be used for! Then the American Psychiatric Association, at their meeting, VOTED whether to name ADD/ADHD as an official "illness" or not.

 

This is a distortion. Drug companies have influences which we all dislike, but ADD is a real phenomenon which takes on a particular set of characteristics which we see consistently and repeated causing maladaptive behavior across many people. It isn't an arbitrary process of assigning mental disorders. In fact, there is always tremendous controversy when something is made to be a disorder or taken off the list.

 

In prior versions of the DSM, an "expert consensus" of a smaller group of people was used, and was more subjet to bias....but nowadays hundreds of research studies using the strictest criteria and controls are used, as well as field studies done especially for determing what diagnosis rates would look like under proposed criteria.

 

No other branch of medicine votes on whether a condition is a real disease or not.

 

This makes the delineation of one "mental illness" and another very vague sometimes.

 

Another difficulty in understanding what is or is not a disease, is that most of these illnesses have NO laboratory tests. There are theories - but if you ask your doctor what lab test he ran to determine your ADHD, I think he'll be taken aback. There ARE no lab tests. No x-rays or blood tests, etc.

 

It is true that there are no "lab tests," but intense batteries of psychological tests are supposed to be given to diagnose ADD. If you understand statistics, it actually works by the exact same principles as medical illness testing. There is a certain probability that the finding is correct, a certain probability it is wrong....and medical tests are not as certain as they are assumed to be. Sure, a mental illness is not like looking at an x-ray of a broken arm, but a lot of the psychological tests we have can converge very well upon a diagnosis with rates of error comparable to medicine.

 

Just like medicine, part of the error comes from the human administering & interpreting the testing, and I think mental health professionals are as a group more fallible there.

 

In the psychiatric world, it's behavior, ideas, etc., and many things that can be considered quite normal are classified as illnesses.

 

Did you know that there is a psychiatric "illness" called "Math Disorder"? It's for kids who have trouble with math. There is also one for "Reading Disorder" for - you guessed it - kids who trouble reading.

 

Good psychologists and psychiatrists don't classify normal behavior as abnormal. Yes, there are people who make mistakes but by definition the expertise is in abnormal stuff.

 

Math disorder and reading disorder are real learning disorders with very specific requirements for diagnosis. Kids that have them have legitimate brain processing problems, it's not that they just "can't read" or "can't write." The gov & schools have to pay extra to accomodate these kids, so do you think they would just accept the diagnosis & pay up if it was purely a simple trouble reading or with math? No way, they'd be paying for 1/2 the class these days, let's be honest. Read up on the real criteria and ask someone who actually does this work how it is done before you say things like this. I find your statement ignorant and disrespectful of kids who have legitimate reading or math LDs.

 

This isn't very scientific sounding, is it?

 

In actuality, the SYMPTOMS of ADD/ADHD are often caused by other - verifiable by lab tests - conditions. Such as allergies, malnutrition, blood sugar conditions, hormonal imbalances, toxins, etc. Thus, the ADD/ADHD is often just a symptom of another problem.

 

I know a woman who was declared insane and locked up in a psychiatric hospital and drugged, soon after giving birth. The psychiatrist deemed her hallucinatory and paranoid.

 

Her husband pretty much snuck her out of there and took her to an MD who diagnosed her with a severe case of hyperthyroidism - not entirely out of the question as she'd just given birth. With PROPER treatment, she was cured of all symptoms. The psychiatrist would have kept her locked up and drugged until her insurance ran out, without the husband's interference.

 

There is an excellent book "A Dose of Sanity" by a neuropsychiatrist named Walker, whom I had the good fortune of speaking with once. He also wrote "The Hyperactivity Hoax."

 

He recommends researching further when patients have psychiatric SYMPTOMS and finding the underlying true medical condition that is causing the mental SYMPTOMS.

 

I am just as guarded as you are against cases of malpractice and ignorance on the part of mental health professionals. However, it's silly to generalize this to everyone and discourage people from seeking out help that improves the well-being of the majority of its' recipients.

 

You also speak of mental illness in the way it has been "medicalized." Unfortunately, mental illnesses are complex phenomena that can't be simplified to "medical problems." No way. It'd be nice if they could. Genetic inheritance, multiple gene interactions, neurotransmitter systems, brain region abnormalities, environmental history, famly history, cognitive thought processes, behavior patterns, etc have all been linked as "causing" part of almost every mental disorder.

 

Psychiatric symptoms are not just outgrowths of medical conditions, but psychological condition which can be treated with psychological prcedures. For many disorders, psych treatment has been found in controlled studies to be just as good as meds. W/o the side effects, and you don't have to do it for the rest of your life either I would add.

 

So let's not disparage that, keep an open mind.

 

Ok, I better end this post and step down off the soapbox. Got way too long & boring

[moimeme]

BlueLP - thanks SO much for saving me a bundle of typing

 

There ARE no lab tests. No x-rays or blood tests, etc.

 

As a matter of fact, AD/HD and many other mental ailments show up on brain SPECT scans. Go to http://www.amenclinic.com and look at the images of SPECT scans there. Dr. Amen has done thousands of SPECT scans on patients and has documented his research.

 

There are, unfortunately, a large number of folks who believe as you do. There is a lot of documented scientific information you can find and read to inform yourself about AD/HD and other mental ailments.

 

The brain is an organ. It is subject to malfunction like all other organs.

[clearasday]

Post: 9 | Quote:

 

I wrote:

<b>What you need to understand is that mental health "disorders" are actually voted on.

 

As for the history of the ADD / ADHD label, the makers of Ritalin created the drug, then contacted psychiatrists and asked them to come up with a disorder that the drug could be used for! Then the American Psychiatric Association, at their meeting, VOTED whether to name ADD/ADHD as an official "illness" or not.</b>

 

you wrote:

<i>This is a distortion. Drug companies have influences which we all dislike, but ADD is a real phenomenon which takes on a particular set of characteristics which we see consistently and repeated causing maladaptive behavior across many people. It isn't an arbitrary process of assigning mental disorders. In fact, there is always tremendous controversy when something is made to be a disorder or taken off the list.</i>

 

Dr. Peter Breggin wrote:

<b><i>“Advocates of ADHD and stimulant drugs have claimed that ADHD is associated with changes in the brain. In fact, both the NIH Consensus Development Conference (1998) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (2000) reports on ADHD have confirmed that there is no known biological basis for ADHD. Any brain abnormalities in these children are almost certainly caused by prior exposure to psychiatric medication.”

 

Peter R. Breggin M.D.

Testimony September 29, 2000

Before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

Committee on Education and the Workforce

U.S. House of Representatives</b></i>

 

From http://www.ritalindeath.com:

<b> In 1987, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ( ADHD ) was literally voted into existence by the American Psychiatric Association and inserted in the DSM-IV, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Within one year 500,000 children in the U.S. were diagnosed with the disorder.

 

Behaviors put on the diagnosis symptom list has widened. Therefore, open the door to more children being put on these drugs.

 

In 1998 at the National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference on ADHD The NIH issued the following statement regarding ADHD: "We do not have an independent, valid test for ADHD, and there is no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction"

 

If no one wants to certify and underwrite the testing/diagnosis criteria, why should any parent have a child tested with bogus testing procedures? (or be held accountable, based on these fraudulent testing procedures?)

 

Between the years of 1990-2000 over 569 children were hospitalized, 38 of them were life threatening hospitalizations, and 186 died from Ritalin.</b>

 

you wrote:

<i>It is true that there are no "lab tests," but intense batteries of psychological tests are supposed to be given to diagnose ADD. If you understand statistics, it actually works by the exact same principles as medical illness testing.</i>

 

Um.. no. When I'm ill, MY doctor runs tests. He LOOKS at things. If I said, "oh, you know, my throat hurts" and he then prescribed me antibiotics BASED SOLELY ON MY SUBJECTIVE OBSERVATIONS, without so much as looking at any physical symptoms, then he would be at risk of a malpractice lawsuit! What if the SYMPTOM of sore throat is from a virus? And the antibiotics only reduce the ability of my immune system to handle it? What if the sore throat is CANCER? What if it's allergies?

 

If I go to the doctor with pain in my breast, described how the pain felt to me and HE DIDN'T LOOK FOR HIMSELF OR RUN ANY TESTS but "diagnosed" me based on my subjective statements, then I'd say he's not a very good doctor at all!!!

 

WHEN do you go to an MD, describe your symptoms and get a diagnosis WITHOUT ANY TESTS OR ACTUAL, PHYSICAL EXAMINATION BY THE PHYSICIAN?

 

I hope the answer is "never".

 

These aren't placebos being given without tests being run on the patient. These are dangerous, often life-threatening drugs with extreme side effects.

 

There was a school in Minnesota, I believe it was, on the news - 80% of the children in this public school were on Ritalin. No doubt about it. There must have been an outbreak of organic disease on all these brains, cured only by the prescription of addictive stimulants.

 

(Sorry. Can't help the sarcasm.)

 

You wrote:

<i>Just like medicine, part of the error comes from the human administering & interpreting the testing, and I think mental health professionals are as a group more fallible there.</i>

 

I agree with you there. In fact, psychiatrists are MUCH more likely than other doctors to be convicted of medicare and insurance fraud.

 

However, more and more general practitioners and pediatricians are prescribing these drugs.

 

I read the average doctor's appointment in which a child is given his or her first prescription for Ritalin is something like 8 MINUTES. Yep! This just proves that it's really treated like any other organically based, actual disease.

 

Jeez! My doctor spends more time than that to diagnose my kids with a cold!!!

 

Keep in mind - side effects of Ritalin include BRAIN ATROPHY (hence the "proof" that brain scans of children with ADHD are abnormal - those abnormal brains have been subjected to Ritalin already), SUICIDAL tendencies (including many successful suicides by children), heart disease (resulting in death in some cases), and a lifetime of addiction.

 

You wrote:

<i>Math disorder and reading disorder are real learning disorders with very specific requirements for diagnosis. Kids that have them have legitimate brain processing problems, it's not that they just "can't read" or "can't write." The gov & schools have to pay extra to accomodate these kids, so do you think they would just accept the diagnosis & pay up if it was purely a simple trouble reading or with math? No way, they'd be paying for 1/2 the class these days, let's be honest. Read up on the real criteria and ask someone who actually does this work how it is done before you say things like this. I find your statement ignorant and disrespectful of kids who have legitimate reading or math LDs.</i>

 

First, I want to mention that YES, the ADDITIONAL MONEY IS A MAJOR MOTIVATING FACTOR for labeling a child as mentally ill!!! These schools get paid EXTRA for these kids, so they DO push to get children labeled! Some parents have been threatened if they refuse to drug their child. I heard a woman speak a few years ago in Sacramento. She'd been told she HAD to let them drug her son, or the school would report her to social services for failure to provide medical treatment, and he would be taken away. She let them drug him. He died of a heart attack from the Ritalin.

 

Another woman was in the news - she refused to give her son Ritalin. He was taken away, put into state care, put on Ritalin, and developed Tourette's Syndrome, one of the side effects of Ritalin. He called her from the institution, and begged her to save him. She "kidnapped" him and took him to Canada. Several years later, they tracked her down and now she is in prison, and her son is institutionalized.

 

The schools ABSOLUTELY push this. I know a number of people who have kids whose school officials have insisted be drugged. They threaten expulsion and getting the kids taken away.

 

These kids, incidentally, normally don't "need" the drug during the summer. It's only during the school year that their brains malfunction... go figure.

 

Secondly, I don't believe my statement is at all ignorant or disrespectful. My homeschooled children, at the ages of 10 and 11 were trained as tutors and volunteering at the local tutoring center - and helping public schooled children, classified and labeled as "learning disabled" to read. All it took was actual attention. Something that many children never get in a classroom with 30 or 40 other kids and an overworked teacher.

 

I have also volunteered for this tutoring group - the last thing I have is disrespect for children who fail to learn in the public school system. I have given my time to help them! I feel helping to keep these kids off dangerous drugs is very respectful on my part. I don't believe they need to be drugged up.

 

That's not to say that reading or math isn't difficult for some children. But I don't believe, unless there is some PHYSICAL brain damage, demonstrable through actual physical testing, that it is a problem with the organic matter of the body.

 

That's not to say that there aren't psychological issues that come into play. You and I agree on this, I think. My argument is that you can't - shouldn't - address psychological issues with drugs.

 

It's either physical or it's not.

 

If it's physical, treat with medicine, sure. Specifically, look for the CAUSE and handle that. But then, if it's physical, it can be demonstrated through LAB tests as a physical condition.

 

(By the way, the brain scans on "ADHD" children involved subjects WHO HAD BEEN ON RITALIN WHICH CAUSES BRAIN ATROPHY, so those tests are flawed beyond use. The problem shown is the drug itself, and its effects, NOT the "ADHD".)

 

If it's psychological, DON'T treat it with a drug.

 

Think about it - there is a drug now for those with "social disorders" who are shy around strangers. How is giving a fairly dangerous, rife with side effects, addictive drug for this any different from prescribing a glass of alcohol? Feel nervous? Drink a beer. Smoke a joint. Light up an opium pipe. Take a pill.

 

After all, heroin, LSD, ecstasy, were all prescribed for psychiatric "conditions" in the past. They're just medicine, right? I'm not sure what they CURE, but for years the psychiatrists insisted they DID cure things, and they got paid to give it to people.

 

We are telling children "if you feel strange, can't deal with life, have problems focusing, take a drug." It's no wonder that the majority of those kids raised on Ritalin are addicted to drugs from there on out. They learned to drug their "psychological" or "social" problems.

 

(Kurt Cobain, a Ritalin child, sang a very sad tribute to Francis Farmer, another psychiatric victim. He is just one example of a Ritalin child taught to use drugs to handle psychological problems.)

 

This is not a medicine to treat a real illness. These are symptoms of behavior and feelings. What if I'm shy? Afraid to talk to strangers? What if I sweat more when someone asks me a question, and my eyes dilate, and my heart rate increases? What if 1% of the population has the same physical reaction?

 

Does this mean it is an organic disease and we should take a drug?

 

There are some who would have the entire population drugged. Have you read the book "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley? Interestingly enough, Huxley's brother was studying psychiatry, and he wrote the book based on conversations he'd had with his brother and his psychiatrist friends about their plan for the world.

 

When we have a public elementary school with 80% of the children on addictive Ritalin, and we have 1/3rd or more of children in foster care on psychiatric drugs (some on as many as 17 different kinds!) and we have a series of school shootings - almost all perpetrated by children on these drugs (not those kids psychiatry hadn't "reached" yet, by the way - the killers are all those psychiatrists had "reached" already), then it's time, I think, to take a good look at what our society will be like when 1/2 the population is drugged. It's heading in that direction, and fast. Visit a nursing home sometime. Almost all the old folks there are drugged into a stupor.

 

You wrote:

quote:Unfortunately, mental illnesses are complex phenomena that can't be simplified to "medical problems." No way.

 

I think we have no idea how many of so-called psychiatric illnesses are strictly medical.

 

You know, I read that WHO declared that schizophrenia is most serious in industrialized nations, and in industrialized nations it is a lifelong disease. In third world countries, schizophrenia generally only lasts 5 years, and at that point, 80% of schizophrenics have COMPLETELY recovered ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT TREATMENT and that the rest of them are recovered enough to lead productive lives.

 

In the US, with all the drugs we give them, schizophrenics don't have a chance.

 

I worked in a home for developmentally disabled adults. Looking through their case studies, I noticed about half a dozen of them were BORN in institutions for the insane. I asked about them, and was told their mothers were pregnant and unwed. Their mother's families, to hide their shame, had the pregnant girls put in these facilities. The babies were born and raised there.

 

None of these 40 - 50 year old people had any true history of family insanity. (Their mothers were just pregnant, not crazy.) Yet these guys were all insane. Most could not speak and one of them couldn't even feed himself. One guy would go out and try to molest children if he wasn't watched closely.

 

THIS was what a psychiatric instutition did to perfectly healthy, normal infants.

 

How on EARTH could these guys fix someone who is ill, when they take normal babies and make them nuts?

 

So, schizophrenia is cured on its own, over time, unless interfered with by drugs and other "treatments".

 

So, children on Ritalin sometimes get Tourette's Syndrome or commit suicide.

 

So, mothers on Effexor sometimes drown their children.

 

So, what I'm saying is that without physical evidence of a physical problem, these dangerous treatments should not be used. We're risking an entire society.

[BlueLP]

PART ONE of my answer (Because you've written too much to respond to here and I have other work to do tonight, but I'd like to discuss more with you )

 

Dr. Peter Breggin wrote:

<b><i>“Advocates of ADHD and stimulant drugs have claimed that ADHD is associated with changes in the brain. In fact, both the NIH Consensus Development Conference (1998) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (2000) reports on ADHD have confirmed that there is no known biological basis for ADHD. Any brain abnormalities in these children are almost certainly caused by prior exposure to psychiatric medication.”

 

I looked this guy up and his website states that for over thirty years he has been testifying in anti-pharmaceutical lawsuits as people's medical expert. I don't think this discredits his expert opinion, however it's clear on which side of the debate he falls. He has very extreme opinions which while interesting do not represent those of the general research community.

 

I love debate about mental illness because it is productive and informing, but his statement really has no meaning in this debate. The line about "no biological basis for ADHD" can be said about every single mental disorder, about our personalities, about almost anything because it presumes a false divide between the mind and the brain, the classic Cartesian duality problem which I'll talk more about later. Look up the mind/brain problem online, that would save me a lot of explaining. Most of your arguments presume that symptoms and disorders exist either on a "medical, biological, brain level" or are just sort of warm, fuzzy things existing in our thoughts. In fact, our thoughts and everything we do is represented on the brain level, it just depends at what level of the brain we are looking at. Some things are such complex combinations that we can't detect or understand them purely looking at pictures of the brain, while others we can see correlations for.

 

The debate isn't about what is a "brain disease" because everything we do has brain causes and correlations as well as psychological ones. They are two ways of thinking about the same thing.

 

The second part, about children's brains being different only account of medication, gets into a whole correlation/causation debate. They are just saying that we can't conclude that kids' brains with ADD look any different than other kids outside of the effects of medication. Again, this has no bearing on whether or not ADD exists, as I'll get into with the mind/brain problem discussion.

 

 

 

From http://www.ritalindeath.com:

<b> In 1987, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ( ADHD ) was literally voted into existence by the American Psychiatric Association and inserted in the DSM-IV, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Within one year 500,000 children in the U.S. were diagnosed with the disorder.

 

Behaviors put on the diagnosis symptom list has widened. Therefore, open the door to more children being put on these drugs.

 

In 1998 at the National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference on ADHD The NIH issued the following statement regarding ADHD: "We do not have an independent, valid test for ADHD, and there is no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction"

 

If no one wants to certify and underwrite the testing/diagnosis criteria, why should any parent have a child tested with bogus testing procedures? (or be held accountable, based on these fraudulent testing procedures?)

 

Between the years of 1990-2000 over 569 children were hospitalized, 38 of them were life threatening hospitalizations, and 186 died from Ritalin.</b>

 

I think just from the title you can tell that this site is going to be a little biased However, I think you bring up a good point that responsible procedures for testing and drug treatment need to be taken. Of course there is no single test for ADD, as I stated before you need a convergence of evidence from kid self-report, parent & teacher report, a battery of psych tests, etc. Psychological illnesses are complicated matters and it'd be irresponsible for psychologists to try to rely on one test. I think that is NIH's point. I'm curious what those statistics mean to you, because I'm certain that I could look up the number of kids hurt or killed by traditional medical drugs to treat medical conditions. It would be higher., and yet you would not tell me that heart murmurs or flus and colds were fake diagnoses.

 

Finally, you keep quoting NIH, which is a great source, but check out their page on ADD http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adhd.cfm

 

What they say runs counter to what you keep using them to argue.

 

you wrote:

<i>It is true that there are no "lab tests," but intense batteries of psychological tests are supposed to be given to diagnose ADD. If you understand statistics, it actually works by the exact same principles as medical illness testing.</i>

 

Um.. no. When I'm ill, MY doctor runs tests. He LOOKS at things. If I said, "oh, you know, my throat hurts" and he then prescribed me antibiotics BASED SOLELY ON MY SUBJECTIVE OBSERVATIONS, without so much as looking at any physical symptoms, then he would be at risk of a malpractice lawsuit! What if the SYMPTOM of sore throat is from a virus? And the antibiotics only reduce the ability of my immune system to handle it? What if the sore throat is CANCER? What if it's allergies?

 

If I go to the doctor with pain in my breast, described how the pain felt to me and HE DIDN'T LOOK FOR HIMSELF OR RUN ANY TESTS but "diagnosed" me based on my subjective statements, then I'd say he's not a very good doctor at all!!!

 

WHEN do you go to an MD, describe your symptoms and get a diagnosis WITHOUT ANY TESTS OR ACTUAL, PHYSICAL EXAMINATION BY THE PHYSICIAN?

 

I hope the answer is "never".

 

How would you propose that we go about diagnosing mental illness? Despite the evidence you would like for your medical model, the brain is too complex an organ to reduce to correlational brain scan techniques.

 

These aren't placebos being given without tests being run on the patient. These are dangerous, often life-threatening drugs with extreme side effects.

 

There was a school in Minnesota, I believe it was, on the news - 80% of the children in this public school were on Ritalin. No doubt about it. There must have been an outbreak of organic disease on all these brains, cured only by the prescription of addictive stimulants.

 

(Sorry. Can't help the sarcasm.)

 

And as I've said before, drugs are supposed to be given with consideration for side effects and w/o abuse of prescription privileges. You are citing extreme abuses. This is not evidence that ADD doesn't exist, or that drugs aren't effective. If you found that 80% of the kids in a school were being given cold medicine even though not 80% did had colds, would you tell me that the drug should never be used and that colds don't exist? Nope.

 

And as far as your example, this is not careful, controlled research. I don't doubt you that it happened, we do have a problem with overmedicating. But if we want to use personal anecdotes as evidence, then we'll fall into the "My granddad smoked all his life and never got cancer so therefore smoking must not case cancer" type reasoning and argue on and on forever. Causes and facts exist on larger levels than single cases, and there will always be exceptions which can be cited on either side of an argument.

[moimeme]

That's not to say that reading or math isn't difficult for some children. But I don't believe, unless there is some PHYSICAL brain damage, demonstrable through actual physical testing, that it is a problem with the organic matter of the body.

 

Dr. Amen's SPECT scans are conducted on all sorts of patients. Many have never been treated. Did you actually go look at them?

 

Your 'evidence' is a combination of rumour and twisted results of science. You cite a number of deaths supposedly attributed to Ritalin. Have you compared the number of deaths for Aspirin? There will always be drug reactions, unfortunately, and of course it is necessary to be careful in prescribing and to monitor patients for potential side-effects. But some deaths due to medications seem to be unavoidable. They occur so rarely and in such small numbers that you have a better chance of winning a lottery.

 

Breggin is a noted anti-psychiatry lobbyist. Just because he's a physician does not mean that he's an expert. In fact, the very fact that he's been testifying for over twenty years means that he's still working on old knowledge. MUCH research on AD/HD and other psychiatric ailments has been done over the past ten years especially and there is a vast amount of information now that didn't exist when Dr. Breggin got his degree.

 

You can deny that learning disorders, AD/HD, and other psychiatric ailments exist based on your limited experience and the 'evidence' presented through rumours and pseudo-science but there are thousands upon thousands of studies that refute what you're saying.

 

But there will always be people who believe the earth is flat, too.

 

BTW UBB code requires square brackets []