Pschiatric Drugs and Children

    Harv Rev Psychiatry. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2014 Jul 18.   Published in final edited form as: Harv Rev Psychiatry. 2013 May-Jun; 21(3): 151–162. doi:  10.1097/HRP.0b013e318293749e PMCID: PMC4103657 NIHMSID: NIHMS589347   Suzanne M. Czerniak, BA, Elif M. Sikoglu, PhD, Jean A. King, PhD, David N. Kennedy, PhD, Eric Mick, ScD, Jean Frazier, MD, and Constance M. Moore, PhD Author information ► Copyright and License information […]

THE BLOG 10/25/2011 04:55 pm ET By Dr. Peter Breggin The diagnosing of millions of children with ADHD in order to medicate them with stimulants and other psychoactive chemicals is an American tragedy, growing into a worldwide catastrophe. Never before in history has a society attempted to deal with its children by drugging a significant portion of them into conformity while failing to meet their needs in the […]

Francis Jensen, Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania is a fantastic lady. She wrote The Teenage Brain , in 2015. A wonderful book for us laymen.  Apparently MRI imaging has allowed for major advances in Brain Research without the need for invasive surgery. Although not the intent of this book, she does make the observation that Ritalin […]

Daniel Carlat on The Trouble With Psychiatry  

Millions of parents and teachers have been enchanted into believing in the existence of a discrete psychiatric illness called “attention deficit disorder” that supposedly afflicts millions of American children…[In fact] these children are not disordered and A.D.D. does not exist. They may have a different style of thinking, attending, and behaving, but it’s the broader social and educational influences that create the disorder, not the children. These children […]

It’s well-known among researchers of the gifted, talented and creative that these individuals exhibit greater intensity and increased levels of emotional, imaginational, intellectual, sensual and psycho-motor excitability and that this is a normal pattern of development.  These characteristics, however, are frequently perceived by psychotherapists and others as evidence of a mental disturbance….ADHD and ADD are a few of the diagnostic labels mistakenly used… When working with the gifted, […]

The National Institute for Mental Health puts out a periodic report called The DSM which purports to describe children’s behavior which would qualify them for the appellation of ADD or ADHD and therefore would qualify them for the taking of Psychiatric Drugs as an antidote to these behaviors But “what could be more absurd than a guide for tagging children as mentally ill simply because they act like […]

In a study led by Herbert Rie  from the Ohio State Department of Pediatrics, Rie found no objective evidence for improvement from Ritalin on any of a series of tests for learning or performance. The children exhibited “typical suppressive behavioral effects”. The children became: “distinctly more bland or “flat” emotionally, lacking both the age-typical variety and frequency of emotional expression.  They responded less, exhibited little or no initiative […]