From The Washington Post: “I try not to blame people: the children and young people who have so often been blamed for their own distress and have felt so guilty that they have blamed themselves; parents and carers who are unable to understand what children are going through and are often just as needy of help; fellow professionals, who are desperate to help but are clinically trained and emotionally more comfortable with traditional ways of doing things.
So, yes, we are in danger of overdiagnosing distressed children and reaching too quickly for a prescription more appropriate for adult illness. But I understand why. Showing how a young person might fulfill — or not — a set of criteria and dishing out a course of pills is very obviously ‘doing’ something, and the pressure to do something is huge.”
