xahrx:here is a specific set of symptoms that exists characterized by hyperactivity and attention defecit problems, usually occurring together at the same time, so yes it does exist to that extent. It is very real.
Yes but calling it a symptom is akin to calling black skin a symptom of being black. Most of these "negative" behaviors are not negative at all and when placed in a different situation can prosper.
Arvin:"My friend has it" is not a valid argument, I'm looking for reliable science and viewpoints. Not "my friend has it".
You will not find any scientific evidence which will be satisfying. All you will find is an arbitrary lumped together group of behavioral traits which are said to exist. Additionally, without knowing the cause of the disease it's amazing that all of these drug companies know how to fix it.
As a result most ADD/ADHD students who do take drugs go on this roller coaster of drug taking as none of them seem to do the trick. This is because human behavior is different, and while some traits may be shared with other people not all traits are. I have brown here, several people do, we are not alike and do not think alike.
The finding of an arbitrary group of behavioral traits (Not symptoms) proves nothing accept that some people share similar genes or have learned certain behaviors in their life just as others.
What usually needs to happen is the following
1. Better Teaching
2. Better Parenting
3. Better environment
4. Better Diet.
Statism is a religion.
filc:Yes but calling it a symptom is akin to calling black skin a symptom of being black. Most of these "negative" behaviors are not negative at all and when placed in a different situation can prosper.
Hence the attempt by most psychs I've known to differentiate between someone who is hyperactive and someone who is hyperactive to such a level, and without apparent ability to control it to any significant extent, such that it leads to serious disfunctions in life. Being hyperactive is not a symptom. Being hyperactive to an extreme that stands out significantly from the general population and not being able to control it except with extreme effort, if at all, is at least a potential symptom. You may just as well say a runny nose wasn't a symptom of the common cold until we discovered the virus that causes the common cold.
filc:Additionally, without knowing the cause of the disease it's amazing that all of these drug companies know how to fix it.
People knew hygiene stopped the spread of disease long before they really knew why. Sometimes you don't need to know the cause, you can treat symptoms and alleviate pain and suffering. Cause or etiology is really only relevant when discussing cures. After all, opium doesn't cure a gun shot wound, but it sure as hell deadens the pain. Likewise ADHD treatments may have nothing to do with what actually causes the issues, but if someone is unusually hyper and mild sedation helps them get along and they approve, their life is better.
filc: 1. Better Teaching, 2. Better Parenting, 3. Better environment, 4. Better Diet.
In some, perhaps even many cases, yes. My only issue is with people who think there's a tendency to pathologize all abnormal behaviors, and who leap to the opposite extreme that mental illness doesn't exist and it's all some conspiracy to loot the public by medicalizing society and drugging as many people as possible. Our understanding of the brain's workings and our own neurochemistry isn't deep or complete enough to rule out true etiologies for various mental illnesses.
xahrx:In some, perhaps even many cases, yes. My only issue is with people who think there's a tendency to pathologize all abnormal behaviors, and who leap to the opposite extreme that mental illness doesn't exist and it's all some conspiracy to loot the public by medicalizing society and drugging as many people as possible. Our understanding of the brain's workings and our own neurochemistry isn't deep or complete enough to rule out true etiologies for various mental illnesses.
You should probably go back and read my earlier post.
xahrx:Our understanding of the brain's workings and our own neurochemistry isn't deep or complete enough
That is correct.
xahrx:Likewise ADHD treatments may have nothing to do with what actually causes the issues, but if someone is unusually hyper and mild sedation helps them get along and they approve, their life is better.
This is also dangerously true. Sedation also makes thieves stop stealing. So clearly that's an appropriate means to an end. Also how do we know their life is better? Only they can be the judge, and since starting drug use genenerally means abandoning all other healthy aveneues they usually don't go back and try healthy alternatives.
I actually have an experience of someone else who took drugs their entire academic career. Then they went off of it due to a living situation for 2 years. They prospered beyond belief in those two years and decided to go back to school to study law. They were fixated on taking the drugs again to get through the school, even though the situation they were in was far more difficult and they did it without the drugs. They could not see how they learned, how to learn. They just believed the medical rhetoric that they must take drugs to go to school successfully.
xahrx:Sometimes you don't need to know the cause, you can treat symptoms and alleviate pain and suffering. Cause or etiology is really only relevant when discussing cures. After all, opium doesn't cure a gun shot wound, but it sure as hell deadens the pain.
Likewise opium cures depression, at least temporarily.
xahrx:Sometimes you don't need to know the cause, you can treat symptoms and alleviate pain and sufferin
FYI This is the exact same argument socialists give for our current means of managing our economy.
xahrx:Hence the attempt by most psychs I've known to differentiate between someone who is hyperactive and someone who is hyperactive to such a level, and without apparent ability to control it to any significant extent, such that it leads to serious dysfunctions in life.
The line is drawn arbitrarily. How many times is a child allow to fidget in their chair and still be classified as normal? Ask your pediatrician if there is a concrete number or if it's perceived based on the feelings of the instructor and observed counselors. In such a situation was the child ever offered the chance to change their environment?
Your also coming from the standpoint that our modern education system is a normal means of educating people and those individuals who do not follow the grain are in error as defined arbitrarily by a small group of scientists and pediatritians.
You need to understand that as an anarchist I am not arguing against the use of drugs. I am simply stating there are typically more productive and life long beneficial methods to deal with alternative learning technique's. Also I think you may not have read my lengthy post above as it addresses all this and since the argument is long-winded I'd rather not repeat myself.
I am also arguing that desirable behavioral traits be determined just as a popular skillsets are determined on the open market. I don't, as a libertarian, see that it's consistent to assume that a small elite group of individuals knows what behavioral patterns are best for producing success for all people in all situations.
xahrx: In some, perhaps even many cases, yes. My only issue is with people who think there's a tendency to pathologize all abnormal behaviors, and who leap to the opposite extreme that mental illness doesn't exist and it's all some conspiracy to loot the public by medicalizing society and drugging as many people as possible. Our understanding of the brain's workings and our own neurochemistry isn't deep or complete enough to rule out true etiologies for various mental illnesses.
I never suggested a conspiracy nor did I say mental disorders don't exist. But, our society IS medicalized. Millions of people are on anti-depressants. Millions are on anti-anxiety medication. Shyness is now "social anxiety disorder". Introversion is now "depression". In my opinion, American society has degenerated to the point where if you're not happy all of the time, then there is something wrong with you. Introspection is discouraged; here, pop a Prozac. Nah, the problem can't possibly lie with you, or your habits, or your lifestyle. You're "disordered".
filc: This is also dangerously true. Sedation also makes thieves stop stealing. So clearly that's an appropriate means to an end. Also how do we know their life is better? Only they can be the judge, and since starting drug use genenerally means abandoning all other healthy aveneues they usually don't go back and try healthy alternatives.
Perhaps you missed my statement: "Likewise ADHD treatments may have nothing to do with what actually causes the issues, but if someone is unusually hyper and mild sedation helps them get along and they approve, their life is better." No where did I suggest the judgement is anyone else's hands other than the individual to be medicated.
filc:FYI This is the exact same argument socialists give for our current means of managing our economy.
No where did I suggest medicating people against their will. Also, medicine is not economics. People here don't like it when docs apply analogies of their field to economics, don't apply economics to established and settled medicine. Or, perhaps you can take someone you care about who has snapped their leg in a few places, and tell them pain killers are just like inflation and welfare, and they need to tough it out without them until their leg bones heal of their own accord...
filc:The line is drawn arbitrarily. How many times is a child allow to fidget in their chair and still be classified as normal? Ask your pediatrician if there is a concrete number or if it's perceived based on the feelings of the instructor and observed counselors. In such a situation was the child ever offered the chance to change their environment?
All lines are arbitrary. The usual standard is some level of clinical significance. I think I hardly need to explain on an Austrian forum that just because something isn't subject to objective measure that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Medicine is not science, it is a practice. As such judgement is appropriate and to be expected and will be to some extent or another arbitrary, which is just another way of saying you disagree with the applied standard. So what?
filc:I don't, as a libertarian, see that it's consistent to assume that a small elite group of individuals knows what behavioral patterns are best for producing success for all people in all situations.
And I never suggested that as a standard. However the specialists in the field of medicine have generally agreed that deviation from the norm on certain behaviors to some statistical significance can be considered a symptom. If someone doesn't like that they can go to a specialist who disagrees. I am not advocating forced medication of any kind, so...?
Drug free treatment.
Seems like most respondents have no idea of a scientific definition of the "existence" of a disease.
The definition that is currently most widely accepted in scietific circles includes that a diagnosis can be made with an objective lab test, or at least a thorough physical examination by a physician.
There is no such test for "ADHD", nor for any other "mental illness", I must add. (Also see the work of Dr. Thomas Szasz.)
Face up to it, there is no ADHD. It is one of the many diseases created by committee and often "diagnosed" by public school teachers, social workers, and other bureaucrats, with the sole purpose of creating lifelong addicts to pharmaceuticals with no proven benefits, but known to cause irreversible brain damage and physical debility.
I am appalled at how many parents allow the government-educational-medical-industrial-complex to abuse and harm their children with this fictional disease.
scineram: Drug free treatment.
I like.
The only "serious dysfuctions in life" that occur are only dysfunctions at doing what's expected of you in kiddie prison ( you know, that place where the government forces children to waste 12 or more years of their lives) and other institutions of serfdom, which I'd hardly call relevant to real life.
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