I wanted to discuss Ahmadinejad corroborating my contention that the American Dollar is worthless, (See ‘Closing in’) but the article entitled: “ADHD may be temporary, study suggests”; in November 13th’s L.A. Times (I love my Times) brought me back to what prompted me to start writing in the first place: mental disease as a socio-political construct!
It was Dr. William Glasser (who I think SHOULD go down in history as the greatest psychologist of-all-time) who informed me that the sugar pill was the greatest medicine ever invented: that it was the sugar pill (as placebo) that had cured more disease than any other medication (just read the small print on the pill bottles, folks). And it was Dr. Jefferson Davis, psychiatrist Son of the eminent Dr. Kingsley Davis, who informed me of the Principle of Thirds: whereby any medicine would work at the cellular level (as it was intended) for 33-and-a-1/3 % of the people taking it. The other 33-and-1/3% would experience a placebo effect; and, the remaining 33-and-1/3% would most likely experience an allergic reaction.
What does this have to do with ADHD? Recall that A.D.D. was “coined” by an American classroom teacher in an article published by a national education journal (I’m sorry folks – I don’t have the names – feel free to fill in the blanks) – and American teachers around the country “glommed” onto the concept. These teachers didn’t need research; Hell! They didn’t even have to take the spiking divorce rates and American cocaine use into account – it was just a “feel good” observation that made sense! Pigeon-holing all sorts of children for parents and quasi-professionals who had no time or inkling to look into what ELSE might be troubling the nation’s school-children. So let’s have an easy fix – let’s go for an easy explanation as to why children can’t concentrate in the classroom. Any honest person looking at the constellation of symptoms for ADHD would realize that every f***ing person in the world suffers from this condition at-one-point in their lives. But…let’s take the easy fix…let’s medicate these wayward youth back into S.A.T. mainstream…
But, “Oh”…I have not yet explained how A.D.D. transmogrified into the disease, ADHD (I am starting to truly enjoy this term ‘transmogrified’ – as that is how things seem to happen in the post-Vietnam U. S. of A.) – things just move from being one thing to being another. Simply folks – the APA (American Psychologists Association) couldn’t get insurance reimbursement from a diagnosis that came out of American education (and not even from the fledgling field of ‘special education,’ mind you) – so as to not lose out on the ever-burgeoning pie proffered by Education’s A.D.D. – the APA merged A.D.D. with Hyperactivity Disorder to create ADHD for the DSM IV (the psychologist’s Bible and mental health care’s bane). Do a lit review – see when the first mentionings of ADHD reared their hoary heads: circa 1993 – strangely coinciding with the publication of the DSM IV! Try to tracing A.D.D. past THAT point! I couldn’t!!
(Neither could Girlfriend Giti).
This is too monumental a task to “package” in a single musing – so I will have to pick-it-up next week, my apologies…till then…