Hyperactivity Meds Jump 46%

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Following an FDA study that found a 46% rise in ADHD prescriptions from 2002-2010, a review in Death and Taxes looks at better marketing and other possible causes of the increase. Among them is Robert Spitzer’s (formulator of the ADD diagnosis) concern that 30% of ADD is “misdiagnosed,” and Peter Breggin’s that “people are so eager nowadays for biological explanations, so physicians and the public grabbed on to what is essentially a PR campaign — perhaps the most successful one in the last 30 years in the Western industrialized nations — that if you have a mental disturbance, it’s biochemical.”

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Kermit Cole
Kermit Cole, MFT, founding editor of Mad in America, works in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a couples and family therapist. Inspired by Open Dialogue, he works as part of a team and consults with couples and families that have members identified as patients. His work in residential treatment — largely with severely traumatized and/or "psychotic" clients — led to an appreciation of the power and beauty of systemic philosophy and practice, as the alternative to the prevailing focus on individual pathology. A former film-maker, he has undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology from Harvard University, as well as an MFT degree from the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia. He is a doctoral candidate with the Taos Institute and the Free University of Brussels. You can reach him at [email protected].

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