Group items tagged

"In the United States, at least 9% of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD, and are taking pharmaceutical medications. In France, the percentage of kids diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is less than .5%. How come the epidemic of ADHD-which has become firmly established in the United States-has almost completely passed over children in France? Is ADHD a biological-neurological disorder? Surprisingly, the answer to this question depends on whether you live in France or in the United States. In the United States, child psychiatrists consider ADHD to be a biological disorder with biological causes. The preferred treatment is also biological--psycho stimulant medications such as Ritalin and Adderall."

In a bold and unprecedented move for any professional body, the UK Division of Clinical Psychology, a sub-division of the British Psychological Society, will issue a Position Statement tomorrow which calls for the end of the unevidenced biomedical model implied by psychiatric diagnosis. (Editor's note: MIA will link to statement here as soon as it is made available) The key message of the statement is: "The DCP is of the view that it is timely and appropriate to affirm publicly that the current classification system as outlined in DSM and ICD, in respect of the functional psychiatric diagnoses, has significant conceptual and empirical limitations. Consequently, there is a need for a paradigm shift in relation to the experiences that these diagnoses refer to, towards a conceptual system not based on a 'disease' model." In brief, the argument is that the so-called 'functional' diagnoses - schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorder, ADHD and so on - are not scientifically valid categories and are often damaging in practice. The statement argues that we already have alternatives, such as psychological formulation, and that there is a need to work in partnership with service users and professional groups, including psychiatrists, in order to develop these further. The full statement can be read here.