Cientificismo y trastorno por déficit de atención e hiperactividad (TDAH)

Para que un diagnóstico como el trastorno por déficit de atención e hiperactividad (TDAH) sea útil científicamente, es necesario demostrar que el concepto conduce a un avance del conocimiento en torno a las causas. Para que sea útil desde el punto de vista clínico, hay que demostrar que da lugar a mejores resultados en la práctica clínica. Examino la evidencia disponible sobre la utilidad científica y clínica del TDAH, que muestra que el concepto no tiene una base empírica. La creencia sostenida de que el TDAH existe como categoría natural se asemeja más al cientificismo que a la ciencia. El TDAH es más un hecho de la cultura que de la naturaleza. Puesto que el concepto de TDAH no ha ayudado a avanzar en el conocimiento científico o en la práctica clínica, podemos decir con objetividad que hace tiempo que se pasó su fecha de caducida

Cientificismo y trastorno por déficit de atención e hiperactividad (TDAH)

Para que un diagnóstico como el trastorno por déficit de atención e hiperactividad (TDAH) sea útil científicamente, es necesario demostrar que el concepto conduce a un avance del conocimiento en torno a las causas. Para que sea útil desde el punto de vista clínico, hay que demostrar que da lugar a mejores resultados en la práctica clínica. Examino la evidencia disponible sobre la utilidad científica y clínica del TDAH, que muestra que el concepto no tiene una base empírica. La creencia sostenida de que el TDAH existe como categoría natural se asemeja más al cientificismo que a la ciencia. El TDAH es más un hecho de la cultura que de la naturaleza. Puesto que el concepto de TDAH no ha ayudado a avanzar en el conocimiento científico o en la práctica clínica, podemos decir con objetividad que hace tiempo que se pasó su fecha de caducida

Does autism have an essential nature?

Debate 1. Does autism have an essential nature? Damian Milton, a sociologist and activist and Sami Timimi a child and adolescent psychiatrist. The essential nature of autism (and the merits of diagnosis) in a series of emails in summer 2016 before an initial meeting of the Rethinking Autism Network (RAN)

Deconstructing Diagnosis: Four commentaries on a diagnostic tool to assess individuals for autism spectrum disorders.

Diagnostic assessment tools are widely used instruments in research and clinical practice to assess and evaluate autism symptoms for both children and adults. These tools typically involve observing the child or adult under assessment, and rating their behaviour for signs or so-called symptoms of autism. In order to examine how autism diagnosis is constructed, how diagnostic tools are positioned, and how their trainings are delivered, we paid for four places on a training course for a diagnostic tool. We asked the attendees (the first four authors) to each produce a critical commentary about their impressions of the training and the diagnostic tool itself. Their commentaries are published here in full. They have various disciplinary backgrounds: one is a social scientist, one an ethicist, one a psychiatrist, and one a developmental psychologist. The commentaries are followed by a concluding section that summarises the themes, commonalities, and differences between their accounts of the training course. Authors differed as to whether the diagnostic tool is a useful and necessary endeavour. Nevertheless, all critiqued of the tool’s lack of transparency, recognizing context, emotion, and differences in interpretation and power imbalances as playing an unidentified role in the assessment process. Based on this project, we recommend that training for raters for such tools should be accessible to a wider group of people, and incorporate more explicit recognition of its own limitations and commercialisation

The dangers of mental health promotion in schools

Much of Western media has promoted the idea that we are facing an epidemic of mental illness and psychiatric emergencies in contemporary Western society and worldwide, and that young people are a particularly vulnerable group. Schools have become a prominent site of concern and focus for this discourse as mental health problems are said to start early in life; thus, targeting intervention at people in their early years and greater mental health awareness amongst staff and pupils are perceived as important mental disorder prevention strategies. However, the belief that mental disorders can be classified and investigated using the same tools as physical health has led to a system of knowledge that lacks validity being constructed. This ideology, far from leading to enlightened progress that will prevent and/or ameliorate future mental health problems, inadvertently sets young people on a path towards alienation from, and suspicion of, their emotional lives and a lack of curiosity about, or tolerance of, suffering. This article explores how a lack of understanding about what sort of ‘thing’ a mental health problem/disorder/diagnosis/illness is leads to confusion about the meaning and consequences of experiencing mental distress and/or mental difference. Interviews with secondary school teachers carried out by one of the authors (ZT) show how awareness of mental health and mental disorder has increased in UK secondary schools over the last decade and how this has led to an expansion in the numbers of students thought to have mental health problems that required professional intervention. As a result, teachers now identify many behaviours and experiences they previously deemed ordinary and/or understandable as likely mental health problems that required professional expertise they lacked. Rather than preventing mental health problems, it is likely that this ideology, and the resulting practices it encourages, are creating them