I believe there are some true ADHD issues, but from personal experience with my son when he was little, I discovered that food and environmental allergies/sensitivities could cause some of the very same symptoms.  I literally could watch him change from Dr. Jekyl to Mr. Hyde in a manner of minutes.  Tomatoes made him hyperactive, molds made him irritable and/or hyperactive.  I never would have suspected a link with behaviors until we were tracking down an excessive throat-clearing problem!  The first time I took him for allergy testing using the provacative/neutralization method, I came home & told my husband how I witnessed an amazing personality change during a test.  He knew I wasn't lying, but thought I was crazy.  He attended the next session & witnessed a very similar result for a different allergen.  I only wish I had known in advance and had a video camera to record it!   Prior to being treated for allergies, he could never sit still to do homework.  Once we got on track, he could finish his homework in a matter a minutes.  I made the mistake of giving him cough syrup one night while he was in the middle of homework because he was coughing so much--45 minutes later he was only on the 4th or 5th word of his spelling homework and I was ready to pull my hair out!

I just finished reading a book called, The Naked Woman Who Stood On Her Head, authored by a Psychiatrist whose name is, Gary Small M.D.  One of the stories in the book was called, The Mountain Heir.   The person seeking help for a phobia was being diagnosed by Dr. Small.  He said that a number of genetic factors made the patient susceptible to phobias.  The patient laughed and Dr. Small said, "What's so funny?"  To which the patient replied, --- "I was adopted."  I was impressed by Dr. Small's willingness to admit his error and not censor it out of the story.  

Mar 5, 2012 -- 10:32PM, REteach wrote:

ADHD is a neurotransmitter problem.  Just because not everyone on stimulants has ADHD does not mean that ADHD is not real. Some genes have actually been identified.  

sheesh. 

As the father of a child who struggles with this and other mental health issues, I know it's very real.

The point is, the diagnosis is apparenlty over-applied. That, too, is real. 

Mar 22, 2012 -- 11:41AM, mountain_man wrote:

Mar 22, 2012 -- 10:57AM, StephenK.Adams wrote:

I just finished reading a book called, The Naked Woman Who Stood On Her Head, authored by a Psychiatrist whose name is, Gary Small M.D.  One of the stories in the book was called, The Mountain Heir.   The person seeking help for a phobia was being diagnosed by Dr. Small.  He said that a number of genetic factors made the patient susceptible to phobias.  The patient laughed and Dr. Small said, "What's so funny?"  To which the patient replied, --- "I was adopted."  I was impressed by Dr. Small's willingness to admit his error and not censor it out of the story.

Uh.... being adopted does not cancel out genetic factors in such mental illnesses.

Rather than being genetic factors, the above story indicates that it can also be a learned response from one or both of the parents that adopted you.  Or for that matter, any learned response from whatever source.

Mar 22, 2012 -- 12:04PM, mountain_man wrote:

Mar 22, 2012 -- 12:01PM, StephenK.Adams wrote:

Rather than being genetic factors, the above story indicates that it can also be a learned response from one or both of the parents that adopted you.  Or for that matter, any learned response from whatever source.

I never said otherwise. The problems the adopted woman had still could have had, in part, a genetic basis.

The problem as I see it is that far too often these problems are written off as being genetic in nature when there is sufficient evidence to prove otherwise.   The following words are from a book I read some time ago.

Bio-Psychiatrists have shown that people who are considered to be mentally ill or are suffering from acute stress disorders, do not have enough of the chemical serotonin in their brain metabolism. Prozac and other Selective Serotonin Uptake Inhibitors have the capacity to increase the level of serotonin in the brain.


Although this would appear to validate the biological definition of mental illness, further examination is required. Dr. Michael J. Norden, M.D., has authored an important book called, “Beyond Prozac.” On page 176, the following quotation from Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz appears: --- "Psychological treatments clearly produce biological effects on the brain. My colleagues and I have recently shown that, similar to Prozac, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy is capable of correcting abnormalities in the brain metabolic rates of patients with obsessive compulsive behavior."

The above ideas do not mesh with the belief that genetics plays a part in all mental illness.  If that were the case, then cognitive behavioral therapy could not correct genetic abnormalities in the brain.  I postulate that conglomerated fears caused the chemical imbalance in the brain and cognitive behavior therapy helped the patient to overcome his or her conglomerated fears and restore a normal balance of "brain metabolism" for the patient in question.

One Bio-Psychiatrist stated that talking (rather than medication) was useless.  In fact he stated further that talking could actually make things worse.  Perhaps he failed to realize that he just admitted that talking has an effect.   The question then becomes, does the "talker" have the skill to help his patient.   In the case of the Bio-Psychiatrist mentioned above, since he thinks that talking is useless, the chances that he could help a patient by talking with him or her would probably be next to hopeless.