The (un)real existence of ADHD

[Allylbenzene]

This paper from 2022 articulates things quite well:

ADHD is listed in DSM-5 under “Neurodevelopmental Disorders” in spite of reviews showing that (a) genetic evidence on ADHD is inadequate and diffused with ambiguous interpretations, (b) that no biological marker is diagnostic for ADHD something that even DSM-5 authors themselves explicitly admit, (c) the so-called “underlying mechanisms” remain unknown, and (d) no biological tests are available for its diagnosis.

Moreover, DSM-5 authors implicitly acknowledge that the classification of ADHD as neurodevelopmental disorder is not well-founded: “[O]n the basis of patterns of symptoms, comorbidity, and shared risk factors, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was placed with neurodevelopmental disorders, but the same data also supported strong arguments to place ADHD within disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders”.

In other words, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that ADHD is as a condition within an individual—something individuals have, owing to which they are vulnerable to various risks the condition exposes them to.

Asserting that ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder is a scientific conceit on one hand and reflects the DSM's political, cultural, and financial role in the psychiatrization of children's everyday lives on the other.

ADHD diagnosis has expanded globally via institutions such as school, pharmaceutical industry, and western psychiatry along with the DSM, in all of which the psycho-medical discourse on deficit, disorder and disability is adopted and mobilized. In and through this discourse, ADHD exists as a neurobiological or neurodevelopmental condition within an individual caused by development processes of nature over which etiology individuals, society, or culture has no power.

As does this paper:

It is essential that discourse communities do not repeat these four ways of reifying behavior and social relations into an alleged entity with the acronym ADHD. The errors and habits of writing may be epistemologically violent by influencing how laypeople and professionals see children and ultimately how children may come to see themselves in a negative way. Beyond that, if the institutional world shaped to help children is based on misguided assumptions, it may cause them harm and help perpetuate the misguided narrative.

 

[Featherfall]

brother, thats all mental pathologies, foucault etc.

 

[Rectify]

You Could Call Virtually Any Psychiatric Diagnosis Unreal. But ADHD Was, For A Long Time, The Best Way To Score Adderall, Which By The Way, Is In Many Ways STRONGER Than METH.