Across countries, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have become the ‘go to’ explanations for:
- difficult or unusual child behaviour
- an unresponsive partner
- a difficult employee or manager
- long term dysfunctions
Before the millennium very different explanations would have been proferred. Are there really more casualties? Are we now any better at resolving these issues?
Difficult to assess true prevalence because there are no biological markers for ADHD/ASD. This comes as a surprise to most users of the terms. It should generate caution when a child is placed on a ‘pathway’ for one and sometimes both of these disorders. Or when a person re-interprets what they see as long-term dysfunction in terms of one or other of these labels. Due consideration should be given to alternative simpler explanations and treatments. But mental hypochondria rules, the equivalent of seeing a headache as signs of a brain tumour, which would evoke a ‘not impossible but really….’ response.
Propelled by pharmaceutical companies and designated specialist Units, the ADHD/ASD juggernaut has acquired such momentum that it may be regarded as ‘churlish’ and ‘unprofessional’ to question it. Defenders of these constructs, can rightly point out that there are no biological markers for any of the psychological disorders. But this does not seem a sound basis for multiplying diagnoses. Curiously these disorders do not figure in the NHS Talking Therapies lexicon, nor where they a focus in the most recent meta-analysis of the efficacy of CBT treatments Cuijpers et al (2025). In subsequent posts I will look at the validity, utility and authority behind the supposed treatments of ADHD/ASD.
Dr Mike Scott