The Great ADHD Myth? review – the most controversial show of the year is here

Dr Max Pemberton isn’t uncompassionate or especially radical, but he assembles a team of medics whose stance on the condition is clear from the off.

This is a documentary that will incense and offend many Presenter Max Pemberton, a psychiatrist in the NHS, Daily Mail columnist and author, and the experts he has assembled, waste no time in setting out their stall in The Great ADHD Myth?.

This is a documentary that will incense and offend some of its viewers, and its scepticism regarding ADHD is clear from the outset.

“It’s certainly not a medical condition as far as I’m concerned,” says the former president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Dr Iona Heath.

“We’re going to look back and think: did we actually put a chemical cosh on an entire developing generation of brains?” says a neurophysiological psychologist.

“The industry around ADHD is about making money at the cost of the misery of others,” says a former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

These represent the three main questions raised by Pemberton.

The first is whether ADHD is a neuro-developmental disorder – ie do those diagnosed with the condition have different brains from those without – or whether it is a way of suppressing natural tendencies (especially those of children) and inducing behaviours that society deems acceptable.

The second is how doctors should approach treatment, which most often involves amphetamines.

“These are controlled drugs,” says consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Sami Timimi.

“There’s good reason why we warn the rest of the population [about them].” The third question is – who benefits from the increase in diagnoses we have seen in the past decade or so? How has ADHD moved from a relatively unknown condition 10 years ago to affecting about 2.5 million people in the UK today (including a 200% increase in people being referred for diagnosis in the past five years)? Continue reading...