Autism adhd and rough drafts for forensic.

[Meunster]

This is now a make shift google drive (real one is full) for my forensics papers. However, feedback is pretty welcomed.

On autism, adhd, and other

In america 18% of people are diagnosed with a mental illness. Germany only has 11%. korea has 7%.

Now maybe, it's the fluoride in the water, or the vaccines that kids are getting, or maybe It's capitalism.
capitalism? giving kids mental illnesses? far fetched, but listen to my logic.

first imagine you're a regular psychiatrist, psychologist. You're not paid based off of the hours you work, and even if you were you require people to have problems to work. If you don't have anyone to counsel then you are out on the street. Now imagine what happens when a kid comes into your office. Even if he's a normal kid, the parents could think that the normal stages of growing up as a child or young adult are signs of a mental illness. So you talk to him, and most of the illnesses have symptoms that are so broad anyone can have them, for any reason.
Here's the best part, you can assign that kid anything you want that sounds reasonable for the behavior. You don't even have to test these kids, looking at the brain and pointing out the part that is not working is not required,  either because the tests for it don't exist, or because you just don't need to.
"Doesn't like people?" must be autism
"Gets bored in class" ADHD
Then give him a slip to get a pill at Walgreens, and recommend he comes back every month to check his progress and get another slip for pills.

There you go, job security, more money, and by just giving a regular kid a harmless tag.

Except it's not harmless. Imagine you're that kid. You just walked out being diagnosed with something like ADHD. It explains everything about you not sitting still, or not paying attention in class. Giving you a name is a self fulfilling prophecy. You are given a tittle, then you act in accordance with the tittle because it helps other people to understand why you're weird. Yet, you might not even have ADHD at all, you could just have a messed up diet, or are just lacking self control. Yet because of that you get a stigma that turns you into someone else. Instead of being told how to get better you are being lead into a way to get worse. The diagnoses is not the solution.

There's no one answer, but there are many small answers that can help everyone. For one, read, be skeptical, you may not be an expert, but you can know the difference between illnesses, especially when you, or your kid is being diagnosed with it.

Maybe redo some of the medical field so people don't have income on commission when diagnosing people.

Maybe stricter regulations, make the kids get the test before assigning the drugs, and don't diagnose kids with illnesses that have no physical base.



and that's the end, I'll probably go back and change my examples, add in more stats, this is a rough draft.

[Eater of Clowns]

That's a pretty outrageous accusation to be throwing at an entire field without any supporting evidence. Can you cite a documented case where a psychiatrist diagnoses and prescribes pills to bleed their clients dry of money? Or better, can you provide a statistic of the number of psychiatrists who have been found guilty of medical malpractice for misdiagnoses? Have you taken into account the availability of psychiatric counseling on major health insurances, and the cost of ongoing therapy vs. prescriptions? How about the role major pharmaceutical companies play? Right now you're just presenting some kind of bizarre conspiracy theory.

[LMNO]

E0C's got a point.  The tone of this essay is about two and a half steps from Scientology.

[Doktor Howl]

Buncha fucks got me on Ritalin as a kid.  Didn't help, because I don't have ADHD, I'm just an asshat.

They tried the same thing with my son, because he was on his own wavelength.  I refused.  He grew up happy and normal, with a 3.8 GPA in high school.

I don't have any idea of the validity of ADHD.  I just know that it's fucking over-diagnosed.

[Doktor Howl]

So I find myself in agreement with the general notion of the OP.

[Meunster]

That's a pretty outrageous accusation to be throwing at an entire field without any supporting evidence. Can you cite a documented case where a psychiatrist diagnoses and prescribes pills to bleed their clients dry of money? Or better, can you provide a statistic of the number of psychiatrists who have been found guilty of medical malpractice for misdiagnoses? Have you taken into account the availability of psychiatric counseling on major health insurances, and the cost of ongoing therapy vs. prescriptions? How about the role major pharmaceutical companies play? Right now you're just presenting some kind of bizarre conspiracy theory.

Yes, it was either some vague bait, or why the jews loved hitler.

I'll add in more facts and more cross references with other countries and shit.

[Eater of Clowns]

Buncha fucks got me on Ritalin as a kid.  Didn't help, because I don't have ADHD, I'm just an asshat.

They tried the same thing with my son, because he was on his own wavelength.  I refused.  He grew up happy and normal, with a 3.8 GPA in high school.

I don't have any idea of the validity of ADHD.  I just know that it's fucking over-diagnosed.

LMNO posted a really great article a few months back about how ADHD is one of those diseases that's simultaneously underdiagnosed and overdiagnosed. I wish I could remember what thread that was in. It might be a good resource for Meunster.

[LMNO]

Good call.  It's here:

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=36755.msg1357014#msg1357014

[The Johnny]

From all of the rationalizations one can create to avoid treatment for mental illness, one of them is people don't recognize they have a problem in the first place - they rather are special snowflakes that none understand -; another rationalization is sweeping generalizations to discredit entire fields of research and professions.

By your own logic ALL doctors and nurses make people sick, mechanics ruin cars, engineers break their systems.

Trust NO ONE, so do surgery on yourself, fix your own car and self medicate.

[P3nT4gR4m]

From all of the rationalizations one can create to avoid treatment for mental illness, one of them is people don't recognize they have a problem in the first place - they rather are special snowflakes that none understand -; another rationalization is sweeping generalizations to discredit entire fields of research and professions.

By your own logic ALL doctors and nurses make people sick, mechanics ruin cars, engineers break their systems.

Trust NO ONE, so do surgery on yourself, fix your own car and self medicate.

Maybe the truth is a some in column-A and some in column-B?

I'm on the fence. Knowing mental dysfunction the way I do, I know it's a lot more complex than just broad canvassing select symptoms. I agree with the OP's observation of the potential for the diagnosis to influence cognitive development. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if this happened sometimes.

[rong]

Is there a distinction between mental illness and mental disorder?  What if someone has the symptoms of, say, ADHD - but they like it that way?? Does that happen?

[The Johnny]

The concept of mental health is murky at best, and it needs a reference point... is it happiness? economical functionality? integration to society?...

ADHD is usually only considered a problem by either parents or teachers, but not by the child or its peers (for what its worth) and the medication is just usually a way to numb them up and shut them up. Are better grades at that age worth being drugged to oblivion? Probably not.... but what about highschool and beyond? perhaps if they themselves feel they cannot focus like they would WANT to be qble to, it can be called a disorder because it impairs their lives, but if they like being that way then its more a case of not being neurotypical.

In other words, there are two broad categories, neurotypical vs deviant, and both groups can respectively be within the spectrum of illness or disorder, depending on which stick is used to measure.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Buncha fucks got me on Ritalin as a kid.  Didn't help, because I don't have ADHD, I'm just an asshat.

They tried the same thing with my son, because he was on his own wavelength.  I refused.  He grew up happy and normal, with a 3.8 GPA in high school.

I don't have any idea of the validity of ADHD.  I just know that it's fucking over-diagnosed.

LMNO posted a really great article a few months back about how ADHD is one of those diseases that's simultaneously underdiagnosed and overdiagnosed. I wish I could remember what thread that was in. It might be a good resource for Meunster.

Yes, this.

Most people don't really understand what ADHD is. Even researchers are just starting to delve into the neurobiological origins. Medication, as it turns out, only works for longer than about 8 weeks if it's taken sporadically, because tolerance develops rapidly. There are some effective non-medical treatments for some types of ADHD (turns out it's not one disorder, it's at least three discrete disorders that share several features in common) but implementing them is challenging because it really calls for a complete overhaul of our school system policies and the expectations we have of children.

I think that the essay makes some points that have validity but is too sweeping, incautious, and unsupported as it stands. There IS research that you could use to support your perspective that medication is not the best answer. There IS research (as EOC pointed out) that you could use to support your perspective that it is often incorrectly diagnosed. There IS research that supports changing the way children are taught and our expectations of them. Find this research, and use it. Currently your essay reads as opinionated bloviating by someone who is profoundly uninformed on the topic.

There is NOT evidence, that I am aware of, that psychologists are deliberately misdiagnosing kids in order to make more money, and if you can find some, you have more than a high-school essay on your hands, you have the beginning of a full-blown expose.



And FFS, if you're going to talk about the medication, at least read enough research to understand what the stimulant medication given to people with ADHD actually does to brain activity.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Is there a distinction between mental illness and mental disorder?  What if someone has the symptoms of, say, ADHD - but they like it that way?? Does that happen?

According to standards in the US, a mental illness is an illness when it meets the three D criteria: it must be disordered (outside of the scope of normalcy), dysfunctional (causing impairment to a person's functioning), and disturbing (usually this means disturbing to the patient, but it can also mean disturbing to the patient's family). In psychiatry and psychology there is little consistency in diagnosis, because it is highly subjective and largely based on observation of behavioral characteristics. One problem with this is that different disorders of brain connectivity can produce symptoms that seems identical but need to be treated using different approaches.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The concept of mental health is murky at best, and it needs a reference point... is it happiness? economical functionality? integration to society?...

ADHD is usually only considered a problem by either parents or teachers, but not by the child or its peers (for what its worth) and the medication is just usually a way to numb them up and shut them up. Are better grades at that age worth being drugged to oblivion? Probably not.... but what about highschool and beyond? perhaps if they themselves feel they cannot focus like they would WANT to be qble to, it can be called a disorder because it impairs their lives, but if they like being that way then its more a case of not being neurotypical.

In other words, there are two broad categories, neurotypical vs deviant, and both groups can respectively be within the spectrum of illness or disorder, depending on which stick is used to measure.

As someone who has ADHD and who has a child with ADHD, this may be true in some cases but it most certainly is not true in all cases.