Szasz Thomas MD on ADHD - ADD in children

Can the child hire another doctor for a second opinion, a different explanation in his/her favor? No.
"Another lamentable new development, is a claim that millions of children suffer from a mental illness called Attention deficit hyperactive disorder and that Ritalin administered to children often against the parents will ( of course it's always against the child's will, but nobody is asking the children) and the administration of Ritalin is a treatment for it.

Well if you believe that, you will believe anything. No behaviour or misbehaviour is a disease or can be a disease, that's not what diseases are!...

Diseases are malfunctions of the human body, of the heart, the liver , the kidney, the brain. So it doesn't matter how a child behaves, there is nothing to examine. If he is sick then there must be some objective science to it. Which can be diagnosed by physicians and objective tests.

As soon as you go to a doctor, they take a lot of blood. They take Xrays. They don't want to hear how you behave.(laughter)

Labeling a child as "mentally ill" is stigmatization, it is not diagnosis. Giving a child a psychiatric drug is poisoning them, not treatment."

Audio only of Dr Thomas Szasz the author of The Myth of Mental Illness.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Szasz
• mental
• illness
• myth
• of
• ADHD
• ADD
• treatment
• poison
• psychiatric
• diagnosis
• stigmatization

[4ckedhero]

mr szasz had obviously never had nor cared for someone with a mental illness. if he had he would know intimately how real they can be.

[markae0]

@4ckedhero

Behaviors are real , the psychotic molecule is not, the depression molecule is not. These imaginary molecules do not float in my (schizophrenic) bloodstream for antipsychotics and antidepressants to attack. People must control themselves, if they can not control themselves their feeling/emotions must be too large. Drugs can help or harm. A lifetime of drugs is the wrong solution, and also a 25 year shorter one on "meds".

[learn54]

Diseases are malfunctions of the human body so behavior can not be a disease. In the 1950's this was accepted wisdom. In the 21st century, it is a radical statement.

[LexeconKiddo]

@ADFerrizzi With all due respect, the majority of people entering treatment for substance abuse come out believing the in the "disease model" regarding not only addiction/alcoholism (which I personally believe is utter bullshit--and VERY damaging to the people that label is attached to!) and more often than not these days another comorbid disease. I've seen people talked into their bipolar DXes too many times. Perhaps you do have it, perhaps it does exist, but forgive my skepticism.

[hezekiahbiles]

@markae0 Hear hear!

[ADFerrizzi]

@4ckedhero the use of medicine is not, on this view, always unwarranted, nor is the empathetic treatment of patients. what is incorrect is the discursive structure that calls me 'addict' and 'diseased,' the cultural response to those notions, and the over-medicalization and hyper-symtomatization that comes with them.

[ADFerrizzi]

@4ckedhero as someone who has two "comorbid diseases" -- 'bipolar disorder' and 'drug and alcohol addiction' -- i can say that it is perfectly consistent to hold szasze's view and to believe that what we call 'mental illnesses' -- general pathologies of behavior and of mental processes -- are very real and should be dealt with.

[gilluccioli]

Dear, lissen this article online about Prof. Szasz. affaritaliani.libero.it/social­e/

[4ckedhero]

it seems to me a semantics game you are playing. if it would make you and mr szasz happy to treat mental illnesses under the auspices of 'neurology' - fine, lets do that. it does not change the reality of the illnesses. i have inattentive ADD. Dr szasz thinks its a fictional problem. i know its not. im missing a gene that most people have and it affects negatively on my life. ive had it since i was born. it can be proven by doing an MRI on my brain.