I wrote about ADHD and Autism quite awhile back – and didn’t really feel like revisiting this stuff – but our daughter, Sylvia, (well she’s not really our daughter – but we kinda look at her like she is) has a nephew that she vehemently suggests has Autism, and consequently, should be medicated. And since I need to get myself prepared to teach in an Australian university — where they often like to follow the American lead — I figured I had better refresh my beliefs for myself to better train teachers and therapists over there than we do over here: where many American wannabe professionals embrace the disease model (cuz it’s a lot easier to medicate for symptom removal than actually try to ‘fix’ troubled family systems). I also constantly remind my American students to keep the changing family constellation in mind when making their diagnosis.
As my readers know by now – I’m not big on medicating children with those serotonin blockers. Side effects aside – I really believe, as a growing cadre of psychotherapists do – that such medications do more harm than good. And the pharmaceutical companies, fearing a loss in profits, are now pushing for even more mental health professionals to be able to prescribe those medications causing chemical lobotomies in children. So, instead of just psychiatrists and medical doctors being able to perform the lobotomies on children, the pharmaceutical companies would like to see psychologists and marriage and family therapists dispensing the chemical scalpels as well.
My colleague, Luis Rubalcava (whom I consider the greatest living expert on bi-culturalism), recently presented to my Intro to Counseling Theories class and reminded me (and my class) that problems in families are relational! And this memory-jarring prompted me to ask Sylvia a-whole-bunch-of questions regarding the parenting of her nephew: How long was he breast fed, or was he even breast fed? Did he get to hang out on the boob for a long time, or, was he ceremoniously plucked from it before he felt finished? Did the parents play kitschy, kitschy, koo (coo?) with him? Was he touched a lot (the healthy kind, ya sickos!)? Did his parents get down on their hands and knees with him and roll-a-round? Sylvia (who is an aspiring nurse) was unable to answer these questions – she, like so many contemporary psychotherapists and doctors, sweep the notion of etiology (the course of events transpiring before a condition develops), under-the-rug and look at what is in front of them in-the-here-and-now: which they experience as a disease. I asked her what happened when this nephew was in a swimming pool. Sylvia reported that he absolutely loved the swimming pool and could stay in it all day. Just this morning I read an article of the calming effect sitting-on-a-horse provides for a two-year-old boy (Sylvia’s nephew is 6) diagnosed with Autism (??!!!)?! I don’t know about you – but such data speaks volumes to me!
I also asked Sylvia why these diseases are so gender-specific: I mean why do ADHD and Autism only “infect” 10% of girls? I guess we have gender-specific designer diseases. And the pharmaceutical-aided lobbyists who get ignorant parents to believe their male children are suffering from some new epidemic (instead of piss-poor parenting) forget that the only reason epidemics occur is that no one has found the cure to the proliferating disease. Find the correct cure (and it’s obvious that it isn’t a serotonin blocker) and you can get the disease under control. But before you can even do that – you need to correctly diagnose the disease.
Last night I saw a young fellow who is now 16-years-old whom I believe I saved from the chemical lobotomy his mother wanted to give him 5-years-ago. His father directed him into music…he was very talkative and personable last night. I also think I saved my own nephew – whose Nurse mother (my former sister-in-law) wanted to medicate him as well. I convinced my brother to stick with exercise and physical activity and my brother decided to throw in psychotherapy as well. This nephew also seems on-the-mend.
I think I’m ready to nip an Autism (and ADHD) epidemic in The Land Down Under in-the-bud!