Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Science or Social Bias

Hyperactive disorder and attention deficit (ADHD) is a rare psychiatric disorder in that it seems peculiar to learning within a school setting and, in its newer form, professional development. Its causes are unknown and drug treatments can, in extreme cases, cause psychosis and mania. Not surprisingly, given the random behavior patterns associated with the condition, it seems to affect boys more than girls. While the medication is rarely used in Britain, it is widely used in the US. The intrinsic problems with such a diagnosis are worth considering.

The symptoms of this condition are inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity expressed primarily within a learning context. Recognized behavioral signs are:

• have a short attention span and be easily distracted
• making careless mistakes, for example, in school work
• seem forgetful or lose things
• being unable to stick to tasks that are tedious or time consuming
• appear unable to hear or carry out instructions
• constant change of activity or task
• have difficulty organizing tasks

And the main signs of hyperactivity and impulsivity are:

• not being able to sit still, especially in a calm or quiet environment
• constantly restless
• being unable to concentrate on tasks
• excessive physical movement
• talk excessively
• can’t wait your turn
• acting without thinking
• interrupt conversations
• little or no sense of danger

In an attempt to avoid the jokes, these traits were once simply accepted as common traits at one point or another in childhood, especially when children are placed in formal settings. Many of the above signs, for example, can be attributed to boredom or simply the consequences of being a child. Just look at young lions, for example, or young chimpanzees and see how their behavior is subject to the same variable traits. Children at school want to play! Playing is a learning process! Children often act without thinking. They are children! They often seem to have little or no sense of danger. They are children! Often, like young lions and chimpanzees, they exhibit excessive physical movement. They are children!

Recently, psychiatrists have outlined a new version of the disorder. Adult ADHD. This apparently involves the inability to organize, be on time for appointments, lack of motivation, lack of concentration, reckless driving, and marital problems. Everything, in fact, except the kitchen sink. In the US, these problems are treated with drugs. But surely, these difficulties are related to the concepts of success within careers and society in much of the middle class. Artists are notoriously, albeit stereotypically, subject to being disorganized—are they all, for example, ADHD sufferers? I’m afraid many psychiatrists would say ‘yes’. Fit in, not be disruptive, have no personality and ideas of your own, be successful, have a stable marriage, and you are unlikely to be diagnosed with ADHD.

As usual, the fault is attributed to synapse malfunction or problems with the prefrontal lobes. Einstein, who along with Churchill is invariably drawn to all theories of human development, has been identified as one of the victims. After all, genius and madness are almost aligned. But nothing of his brain development, as specified in the literature, indicates any of these real or imagined causes. The available literature agrees that the cause lies in defective genes and not in environmental factors. But surely that presents a considerable contradiction. If the parents of children with ADHD suffer from the condition itself, surely their behavior would affect the children. This is simple psychology!

My concern is that ADHD is part of the general process that is increasingly medicalizing human behavior, so that any slight deviation from the norm becomes a psychiatric disorder. Leading British neuroscientist Susan Greenfield expressed her concerns about ADHD to the British Parliament in 2007, feeling it was too quickly and easily diagnosed and too often treated with medication. Neurologists have pointed out that the training of psychiatrists goes through the identification of aberrant behaviors and advice on treatment follow-up, they are not trained in neurology and should not pronounce on the matter with such freedom.

On the surface, and below it, this seems grossly unscientific, based on the influence and credibility of psychiatry with its obsessive labeling. But can the learning process really involve behavioral aberrations and daydreaming in class, as claimed in the counseling literature, is actually a case of psychiatric disorder and not perhaps evidence of creativity, as previous generations believed? Is it evidence of great potential, as in the case of many writers and artists, or an excuse for the use of dangerous and inappropriate drugs in children? Research has revealed that children diagnosed and treated for ADHD often become equally difficult adults; often imprisoned. And yet, surely any child labeled as having a behavioral disorder, put under the stress of being socially isolated as a consequence, given an endless array of drugs, will grow up that way?

As a teacher and speaker of many years, also with qualifications in psychology, I have dealt with many disruptive children and those who are often unable to function at a high level in classroom settings, but rarely with any instance requiring intervention. medical. I usually have extensive contacts with students and become familiar with their lives and backgrounds, whereas a psychiatrist working more or less through a list dealing with a variety of disorders knows little or nothing about the individual in front of him, has no experience Directly from their lives, she knows nothing of educational psychology, classroom theories, or anything outside of her profession.

I think it is also prudent to remember that intensive classroom/school-based teaching is a recent phenomenon built on the economic, philanthropic and political prerequisites of late 19th century nation states.

Given the above, children’s variable reactions to intensive instruction are to be expected. According to the ADHD literature, the first signs of the phenomenon were identified in the early 20th century. But what exactly was being identified? Perhaps that many ungrateful poor children did not appreciate or adjust to intensive schooling, a very recent invention? Prussia introduced compulsory education in the 18th century. When Germany became a state, combining Prussia and several much smaller German states, the education of children was centralized. German officials felt it was necessary to do so in a highly competitive Europe. In Great Britain, the Primary Education Act of 1880 made compulsory education for children aged 5 to 10. At the turn of the 20th century, most children attended long classes in schools across the Western world, forced or forced to sit in inescapable claustrophobic environments for hours at a time with rare opportunities to breathe fresh air. This determined their future, to the extent that the children could adapt to educational pressures. Some would always find this more difficult than others. Some would be stimulated by the educational process, others, less equipped to face it, would not. Can such an artificial practice, albeit with limited occasional precedence, which is of social and economic origin, induce a psychiatric condition?

Clearly, AHDH, from my review of articles in The Lancet, is referring to obstacles to positive career and academic achievement. It predetermines failure in very young children (6 years and older), providing an intervention that seems rarely evaluated for the problems it can cause in the individual child’s future development. Psychiatrists view mental health in the same way that doctors view physical health, so mental illness involves negative foreign bodies that require medical intervention. Such diseases are separate from the environment in which they appear. A psychiatrist deals with mental illness (considered cognitively as a disease) without considering the psychological effects on people in the same way that doctors treat the flu or measles.

While they provide a model of normalcy based on Western cultural imperatives of the middle class, they insist that ADHA is on the rise among the disadvantaged in Western society. Is this little more than class and professional prejudice, I wonder? While they claim that many famous and long-dead figures must have suffered from ADHD, after treatment by a group of myopic psychiatrists, would they have achieved anything?