Understanding the Explosion of ADHD Diagnoses

The following interview is part of a cutting-edge series of video interviews called Parenting Today: Raising Strong, Resilient Kids being aired exclusively on Mad in America.

This series has as its aim educating parents about the current mental disorder paradigm as it relates to children. It also offers many useful tips about how to raise more resilient children and how to become a more skillful parent. In this series of more than thirty interviews, we share information about the diverse resources available to parents, including alternative ones.

Today’s guest is Martin Whitely. Martin Whitely, Ph.D., is a mental health researcher, teacher and author, and previously was a politician, serving as a Member of the Western Australian Parliament from 2001 to 2013. During that time, he influenced Australian pediatric mental health practice, particularly how drugs were prescribed for ADHD.

A focus of his advocacy has been to expose and reduce what’s known as ‘regulatory capture,’ primarily by the pharmaceutical industry, of research, treatment guidelines, and prescription drug licensing and safety monitoring processes. He has also been prominent in highlighting concerns about ‘diagnostic creep,’ the loosening of the diagnostic criteria of psychiatric disorders, potentially leading to inappropriate labelling and over-medication. His book Speed Up and Sit Still explores the ADHD industry in more detail.

We hope that you’ll follow this important series. Mental health advocate Heather Juergensen hosts the interviews, each of which introduces you to an interesting guest speaking on a subject of importance to parents. We hope that you enjoy this series, benefit from it, and decide to alert other parents to its existence!

Parenting Today is produced by Heather Juergensen and Eric Maisel. To learn more about our individual work, please visit Eric Maisel at http://www.ericmaisel.com and Heather Juergensen at www.thestrongwoman.net. If you’re enjoying this series and find it useful, please tell other parents about it. To learn more about the series please visit https://parentingtoday.me/ and join our community!

Click here for more Parenting Today videos.