Biopsychiatry Illuminated

THE CANDLELIGHT PROJECT
by Bob Collier

29 March 2004
Issue 87

Extracts from recent emails to other parents:

March 17, 2004

"As far as I'm concerned, the ongoing controversy surrounding 'ADHD' is looking for the answers in all the wrong places. The diagnosis is fraudulent in itself to start with. I'm sure you've read the alleged 'diagnostic criteria'. If that doesn't make you laugh out loud, you've gone to sleep. Unfortunately, you'd be far from alone, it would seem.

Many parents apparently don't notice that the so-called 'symptoms' of 'ADHD' are nothing more than a shopping list of vague and subjective observations of normal childhood behaviours - they just happen to be normal childhood behaviours that most adults have difficulty with. The supposed 'pathology' of that behaviour, which the American Psychiatric Association and the pharmaceutical industry have successfully sold to the unsuspecting public, exists entirely in the imagination.

Many parents also apparently don't notice that, whereas real brain diseases are typically diagnosed by medical specialists using a whole battery of examinations, including brain scans, blood tests and spinal taps, 'ADHD' seems to be typically diagnosed by teachers and/or parents ticking boxes on a pop questionnaire of the kind usually found in teen magazines. Or a doctor can do it in ten minutes off the top of his head or sometimes even make the diagnosis over the phone, so I've read.

Many parents apparently don't notice that 'ADHD' is a 'disease' that has a mysterious and unexplained ability to select its victims by nationality. How on earth does it know?

Many parents also seem to be unaware that the pharmaceuticals used for the so-called 'treatment' of 'ADHD' have the same effect on the behaviour of children who do not have the 'disease' as they do on the behaviour of those who allegedly do have it. So what exactly is that so-called 'medication' actually treating? Nothing, of course, but it looks good."

March 23, 2004

"I do note that one contributor refers to 'ADHD' as a "medical condition" and, of course, we know it's NOT a medical condition (that's the whole point) - the alleged 'symptoms' are nothing more than a shopping list of normal childhood responses that the American Psychiatric Association has grouped together arbitrarily and attached the word "often" to, the suggestion being that co-incidence and frequency of occurrence, in itself, somehow renders those normal behaviours 'abnormal'. It's a nice idea, if you can get away with it, and the APA has, good and proper, as they say where I come from - but, nonetheless, we're all perfectly free to believe that this manufactured 'diagnosis' is a genuine medical condition if we choose to. Millions of people do, so I read (including people I would have expected to know better), and no doubt the psychiatric profession and the pharmaceutical industry are happy for that perceptual illusion to be maintained indefinitely. Not a lot I can do about that! Particularly when so many members of the professional classes seem to be as taken in by it as the 'unwashed masses'. Has that person done their 'due diligence' and analysed the alleged 'diagnostic criteria'? Do they understand the difference, in the first place, between a disease and a diagnosis? I don't know. You'd have to ask them."

"The joke with the so-called 'medication' for 'ADHD', of course, is that the effect of enhanced concentration experienced by those diagnosed with 'ADHD' is the same as that experienced by those NOT diagnosed with 'ADHD'. I'd certainly expect any sensible person to realise from that fact that the drugs are only drugs in the sense that caffiene is a drug, not in the sense of being a medication (that is, they're not actually 'treating' anything, they simply 'have an effect'), but you really can't force people to realise the implications of that if they're not ready to."

"My goal - and it's a purely personal goal - is to ultimately understand the Whole Story so that I can then explain it in a way that makes sense in terms of moving forward to a better understanding of how to deal truly successfully with parenting problems. ... I'm not on a mission to 'convert' people to my point of view. Everyone can think for themselves. Neither am I specifically interested in putting the drug companies out of business or abolishing psychiatry. Basically, I want to be able to explain clearly to anybody who's interested (and they don't have to be!) why I recognised 'ADHD' as a fraud the first time I set eyes on the so-called 'diagnostic criteria' (actually, "b------t" was the word that came to mind, I discovered the fraud later) while at the same time millions of people apparently haven't even noticed yet, for example, the rather obvious discrepancy between the sloppy and casual manner in which 'ADHD' is typically diagnosed (this is supposed to be a dangerous 'brain disease', right?) and the careful and professional way in which neurological disorders such as enchephalitis or meningitis are typically diagnosed. Nor that, according to the studies I've read, the person most likely to suggest to you that your child has this allegedly serious affliction is a teacher not a doctor! And why is this supposed 'neurological disorder' in the domain of psychiatry, in the first place, when neurological disorders are usually the work of neurologists? (Because psychiatrists are allowed to prescribe drugs and neurologists aren't, perhaps, but that's another part of the story). Yes, APA - pull my other leg, it's got bells on."

March 25, 2004

"I think the disparity between the apparently high number of children diagnosed with 'ADHD' in some schools and the low number found in other schools is probably another clue that there's something suspicious about this alleged disease that can somehow not only select its victims by nationality but also by what school they go to. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that's a rather unusual talent for a disease.

I certainly feel myself that most parents who've bought the 'ADHD' diagnosis probably are too grateful to be relieved of the pressure they've been under in a situation they don't know how to cope with to think straight about what's actually happening. Emotionally-based selective blindness would account for why so many of them seem to me to be overlooking the obvious. Not just parents, there are many members of the medical and educational professions who, for their own reasons, appear not to see what they're looking at, so to speak.

I know I keep coming back to this, but the key to understanding the fraud of 'ADHD' is to understand the arbitrary construction of the alleged 'diagnostic criteria'. Are these behaviours intrinsically pathological? No, they're not. Many of them are not even intrinsically problematic. Have they, in any event, been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt in scientifically controlled conditions to be the product of disease? Pigs might fly. There are many people (including those with important titles and letters after their name) who are very keen to tell me about the legendary "mountains of research", but research is all it is - these people are so busy clutching at straws, they're creating enough air movement to sail a Spanish galleon across the Atlantic.

Are there reasonable explanations for the behaviours other than that they're caused by disease? Yes, of course there are: there's a whole range of them - nearly all of which make a lot more sense.

I think it needs more people to look twice at the so-called 'diagnostic criteria'. It seems to me, however, that we're hardly encouraged to do so - we're usually expected to take them as a given. But, once anybody does that, there's virtually no chance of them spotting the fraud. The elaborate story about 'ADHD' that's built on top of the presumed validity of the 'diagnosis' is internally consistent. A doubt in one place will be rationalised in another.

In the beginning of my involvement with this, when I was exchanging views about the validity of 'ADHD' at parenting forums almost every day, the argument by far the most frequently presented in its defence went something like, "Of course ADHD is real! My child's behaviour matched the diagnostic criteria." It's hard to argue back against that kind of mindset, and, to be honest, I wasn't inclined to bother. Even Professor Russell Barkley, who's supposed to be the world's leading authority on 'ADHD', can't tell the difference, it seems, between a disease and a diagnosis, so what hope for the plebeian masses who trust what these people tell them?"

March 26, 2004

"What brain scan images show is not self-explanatory in the way that x-rays can be - they have to be interpreted. It seems to me at least, from what I know about it, that the interpretation is very much in the eye of the beholder.

It's my personal contention that one thing brain scan images most certainly CANNOT show is 'ADHD', whatever the 'experts' may tell me to the contrary. It doesn't exist in any form that can be observed, even with a state-of-the-art brain scan. It's a perceptual construction: like a butterfly in a Rorschach inkblot test, it isn't really there - but the self-proclaimed 'experts' think it's there, because they believe it should be there, so they interpret what they're looking at to mean what they think it would mean if it was there, because that's what they think they're looking at. If you follow me.

Here's a little story I just made up:

Let's say I can't sleep, for some reason. What could that reason be? Perhaps I'm worried about a relationship that's on the rocks or a pile of bills I have to pay; maybe I'm watching too much late-night TV, or drinking too much alcohol, or I've been working too hard and I'm totally stressed. There could be any number of reasons why I can't sleep.

After a couple of weeks of living with this sorry state of affairs, I go to my doctor. I describe to him how I lie awake all night, tossing and turning in my bed with dark thoughts running around in my head and, when I get to the office in the morning, I find myself staring blankly at my computer screen because I'm too tired to think and now I'm getting worried I might lose my job.

"You've got insomnia", says my doctor.

"Insomnia" is a Greek word that means "absence of sleep". In other words, I've told my doctor I can't sleep and he's simply translated what I've told him from English into Greek.

So, I've been translated - but, as far as my doctor is concerned I've been diagnosed.

My doctor is a believer in biological psychiatry. He tells me that insomnia is a brain disorder that causes an inability to sleep. He shows me the diagnostic criteria in the Psychiatrist's Joke Book (PJB-IV) which tells me that to 'qualify' for this brain disorder (it won't be put in quite those terms, of course, but it amounts to that if my health insurance is covering my medical bill), at least two of five listed symptoms must both be present for at least seven consecutive days (or three of six for two days or four of twelve for ten days, or whatever, depending on which members of the committee drafted the diagnostic criteria) - and there I see for myself that two of the listed symptoms of insomnia are "nocturnal restlessness" and "obsessive staring". Hey, that's exactly what's been happening to me! For the past TWO weeks, I've been tossing and turning in my bed all night and I walk around like a zombie during the day with my eyes popping out. Holy cow! Are you sure, doctor?

Often, this is where you'll get the "trust me I'm a doctor" bit, but let's say my doctor decides to do a brain scan "just to confirm the diagnosis". Always to "confirm", not to rule out, of course. My doctor has already decided; he's just doing the brain scan to keep me happy.

I come back next week and my doctor shows me two pretty pictures. The first one, he tells me, shows a "normal" brain. Does it? I wouldn't have a clue. Then he shows me the second pretty picture and, oh yes, I can see straight away that it's very different. Some of the colours are brighter, some are darker, other colours cover different areas. I've already been shown an image of a normal brain, so naturally I can understand that there's something 'abnormal' about the brain - my brain - in the second picture. My doctor explains to me what I'm looking at, he points out the pattern of blood flow to the hippopotamus, or something, and tells me that's really bad, and this patch of green "suggests" a "chemical imbalance" in the left prefrontal lobe - "see, in this other picture it's more blueish and a lot bigger" - and, by the end of the explanation, I'm thoroughly convinced that I have something wrong with my brain. So, when my doctor tells me there's no cure, but I can "manage" the symptoms of the disorder if I don't mind taking potentially dangerous neurotoxins for the rest of my life, I'm happily nodding my head and going, "Mind, doctor? Of course not. Thanks for all your help!"

Unfortunately for me, the first picture was of the habitualised neural patterns typical of a normal brain whose owner sleeps like a baby every night and the second picture was of the habitualised neural patterns typical of a normal brain whose owner lies awake fretting every night. The supposed 'pathology' of the neural patterns shown in the second picture - in other words, the idea that they were the product of some neurological or physiological abnormality - was entirely in my doctor's imagination.

But, I didn't know that, did I? There's a good chance that he didn't either. That's how dangerous biological psychiatry's unpleasant little fantasies really are.

Genuinely "sick brains" are treated by neurologists, not by psychologists or psychiatrists, but I've never read of a psychiatrist telling an 'ADHD' candidate "Of course, I shouldn't really be making this diagnosis, you should be consulting a neurologist", or of an 'ADHD' candidate asking a psychiatrist "This is supposed to be a brain disease, isn't it? Why are you making the diagnosis and not a neurologist?" I'm not saying it doesn't happen, just that I've never read about it. In any event, I'm sure a lot more of the latter would be a step in the right direction."

ADHD-Report.com: The concerned parents' guide to childrens' attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD/ADD)

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