POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE TELEGRAPH
This is the same stuff we find on the paranoid corner of the Internet.
Ritalin only hides the causes?
You might just as well say that about many, many medications in use.
Mental illnesses and conditions like genuine attention-deficit syndrome are almost all certainly caused by an unfortunate mix of genes or some defective genes.
We have no cures for any of them.
Therapy is a false hope, as it always has been. Therapists understand very little. Only forty or fifty years ago, psycho-therapists were telling people that schizophrenia was caused by an overbearing mother. For all I know, some are still offering such intellectual trash.
But we do have medications which help some, not everyone, but some.
Until we are actually able to understand the causes of these conditions and correct them, medication is all we have.
I have seen the results of successful medication, and I resent people like Mr. Brown who demonize it.
I have seen a child with serious attention-deficit go from being a hopeless student to being able to cope.
And I have seen a person subject to panic-attacks settle to a comparatively normal life with medication.
I would rather no one had to take drugs, and I include medication for gout and high blood pressure and diabetes and cancer, but until we achieve a better understanding of the causes of these conditions medications are lifesavers.
Ritalin only hides the causes?
You might just as well say that about many, many medications in use.
Mental illnesses and conditions like genuine attention-deficit syndrome are almost all certainly caused by an unfortunate mix of genes or some defective genes.
We have no cures for any of them.
Therapy is a false hope, as it always has been. Therapists understand very little. Only forty or fifty years ago, psycho-therapists were telling people that schizophrenia was caused by an overbearing mother. For all I know, some are still offering such intellectual trash.
But we do have medications which help some, not everyone, but some.
Until we are actually able to understand the causes of these conditions and correct them, medication is all we have.
I have seen the results of successful medication, and I resent people like Mr. Brown who demonize it.
I have seen a child with serious attention-deficit go from being a hopeless student to being able to cope.
And I have seen a person subject to panic-attacks settle to a comparatively normal life with medication.
I would rather no one had to take drugs, and I include medication for gout and high blood pressure and diabetes and cancer, but until we achieve a better understanding of the causes of these conditions medications are lifesavers.
We do have doctors who over-prescribe and who inappropriately prescribe, but then we only have super-bug bacteria in our hospitals today because so many doctors have given people antibiotics for a cold.
