The glowing review of Judith Warner’s new book, We’ve Got Issues, in The New York Times this week didn’t exactly catch me by surprise — anyone who has read Warner’s guest columns in recent years knows her take on psychiatric drugs — but it did bewilder me.
What if antidepressants were not just too easily available and overly prescribed by doctors—as has been argued in many venues for years now, though to no discernible effect—but didn’t even work? That’s the takeaway premise of psychology professor Irving Kirsch, Ph.D., in his new book, The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth.
CHILDREN with ADHD who use prescription drugs to manage their condition are 10 times more likely to perform poorly at school than ADHD kids who avoid medication, a new report reveals.
Do you live surrounded by clutter – ancient copies of magazines, your children’s old toys, articles you’ve clipped out of newspapers over the years? If you find it hard to throw out things of limited or no value, you could be suffering from hoarding disorder. ‘Hoarding’ is just one of the new mental conditions being added to the psychiatrists’ bible, or the Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders (DSM), to give it its proper name.
Psychiatrists are to give official recognition to dozens of new mental disorders, including a condition nicknamed “Mary Whitehouse syndrome” — the thrill of being appalled by pornography and other obscenities…. The condition is one of many mood disorders and personality traits that are likely to be added to the next edition of the psychiatrists’ “bible”.