Rating: 
Summary: Abuse is bad, but use is _very_ good
Review: Agreed that abuse is certainly bad, and that alternative therapies should be explored, but this book takes scare-mongering way too far. I am a 24 year old and before I started taking ritalin I suffered all of 'usual' signs of ADD and did very poorly in school, but like many with ADD I was ambitious and creative. After going on ritalin, I graduated at the top of my high school class, went to stanford university where I received a perfect 4.0 and graduated again at the top of my class and won a scholarship to study at Oxford University, where I am now the senoir scholar in the humanities (at 24! and at 11 I was crying because I could barely spell!). This is not to say that all of this is b/c of ritalin, but ritalin undoubtly helped. Many people who have had similar success with ritalin often are quiet about it, since they do not want to be labeled 'minimally brain deficient' or hyperactive, etc. but there are a number of people for whom the drug has done wonders. That said, my parents played a very important role and took me to a number of very good doctors and did in a sense approach ritalin as a drug of last resort after a battery of test from neruologists, psychologists, physicans, etc. Breggin's book was then very disappointing (and in many places scientifically irresponsible). In my case it certainly wasn't true.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, Please!
Review: Before you waste your money on this or any other of Breggin's rantings, read all about him on the Quackwatch website. This kind of pseudoscientific garbage is just what stressed parents of ADHD kids don't need to be spending their time on.
Rating:
Summary: ADHD, Ritalin, & Conspiracies: Talking Back to Peter Breggin
Review: Breggin warns us of the catastrophe now befalling children in the United States as a consequence of the clinical methods of organized psychiatry and psychology, professional diagnostic classifications for childhood mental disorders by these professions, and psychiatric medications for the treatment of those disorders. In his most recent book, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and the stimulant medication, Ritalin often used to treat it, come in for very heavy criticism. Along the way, a number of leading clinical scientists in the field of ADHD, are criticized for misrepresenting the status of our science. National charities, pharmaceutical companies, and even federal institutes that fund mental health research, also receive the full brunt of Breggins' ire. Breggin claims that all are conspiring to "drug" America's school children for the management of their ADHD, among other behavior problems. Left unaddressed by the author is precisely how such a complex conspiracy could ever be organized and kept secret, if it actually existed. No persuasive evidence of such a conspiracy is ever provided in the book, just the repeated assertion that an ADHD/Ritalin conspiracy exists.Breggin considers children with ADHD and other behavior problems actually to be among our most creative, sensitive, energetic, and intelligent. And so he finds the use of medication for their management to be worthy of public concern and scorn. His assessment of ADHD children, however, ignores more than 30 years of longitudinal research on ADHD, including my own ongoing- 20 year follow-up study, demonstrating the substantial and pervasive development risks that ADHD and its related disorders of oppositional and conduct disorder convey to a child. Such research clearly demonstrates that ADHD has a negative impact on intelligence (an average 7-10 points below normal), on academic achievement skills (an average of 10-15 points below normal), and academic progress (25-50 percent are retained in grade, 36 percent fail to graduate high school, and only 5 percent complete a college education). Children with ADHD, particularly those with childhood oppositional defiant disorder, are at much higher risk for later lying and stealing (45 percent), conduct disorder and delinquency (25-45 percent), early substance experimentation and substance dependence/abuse (15-25 percent), and social rejection (50 percent or more). This is not to say that some children with ADHD fail to succeed in life; but it is to say that characterizing this group of children as our best, most creative, and brightest does a severe injustice to the facts of the matter and is woefully misleading to the public in general and to parents of these children in particular. From its opening pages, this book makes contorted attempts at the appearance of scholarship, replete with quotes, footnotes, and references to scientific papers and other sources. Throughout, any quote is mustered from scientific papers that can be taken out of context to support the author's biases along with every exaggerated fact and figure he can find to support his call to alarm, no matter the credibility (or lack of it) of his sources. However, the flaws of both his research methods and his arguments are evident to any scientist even slightly familiar with the scientific literature on the topics covered here. Lacking any sense of perspective and proportion, this book fails to place its facts and figures in their rightful context and history, and eschews any attempt at a balanced and thoughtfully reasoned approach to its major topics. We are left with what appears to be a carefully and cleverly crafted piece of artful propaganda against the diagnosis of ADHD and its treatment with Ritalin. This book accuses leading scientists, physicians, the Food and Drug Administration, NIMH, and established psychiatry and psychology of withholding negative or critical information about stimulant medication and ADHD from the public. Meanwhile, the author does precisely this very same sort of thing himself. Breggin draws upon quotes, facts, figures, and the personal musings of laypeople from many sources in the popular media, all of which are critical of ADHD or stimulant medications like Ritalin. Never is their accuracy or credibility challenged. Yet this book almost ceaselessly criticizes scientific research that supports the validity of ADHD as neurodevelopmental disorder and on the use of stimulant medications as safe and effective treatments. This nit-picking at the petty faults of the clinical studies and the investigators quickly grows tiresome when there is no equally balanced critical treatment of the sources Breggin wishes to cite in support of his own prejudices. It is a lack of balance so lop-sided as to invite disbelief. Science has shown that ADHD and the other disorders Breggin discusses, including autism, are not the consequence of the causes he cites in his book. And so addressing them is not likely to remedy the child's problems. Neither is avoiding the established scientific and clinical pediatric and mental health professions as Breggin recommends. Breggin's view must be seen for what it actually is -- a not-so-subtle form of parent-bashing that lays the blame for ADHD and other complex developmental and mental disorders at the feet of the child's parents, family, and school. This is outdated psychoanalytic thinking, discarded decades ago by the scientific community for its explanatory uselessness not to mention its cruelty toward parents seeking help for their children. The propaganda Breggin offers here will be easily dismissed by the scientific and clinical professional communities as having nothing to add to the important issues related to understanding and managing ADHD. But to the lay reader, such misguidance as Breggin provides in Talking Back to Ritalin can do real harm. Breggin literally encourages parents of ADHD and developmentally disordered children to turn away from the established fields of pediatrics, psychiatry, and psychology and the professionals who practice within them. Instead, Breggin instructs parents to seek outdated, unscientific, and ineffective pop-psychological views of disorders and their treatment. What was so dismaying to me as a professional by the end of the book was the knowledge that Dr. Breggin took an oath as a physician to "first, do no harm." In my opinion, his book has violated that sacred oath.
Rating: 
Summary: Good solid counter-propaganda
Review: Breggin's argument is considerably more nuanced and interesting than the reader from New England implies. Ritalin's side effects, unlike ADHD, have been proven to exist, and most of them are quite unpleasant. Breggin outlines how a drug that should be used as a drug of last resort-- if it should be used at all-- has increasingly been seen in the US and Canada as a 'quick fix' for any difficulties a child may have. This book should be required reading for any parent with a child given the ADHD label.
Rating: 
Summary: Read it first or last-but you must read this important book!
Review: Challenging children exist, yes, but we as parents, teachers and others that work with children must step up to the challenge to give them what they need and move away from labeling and drugging--it is not necessary or effective and is in fact extremely detrimental--as this book so convincingly shows. After reading the full gamut of books (20+) on ADD/ADHD including those with conventional and unconventional views and remedies for the associated behaviors, I had doubts about the validity of ADD/ADHD as a distinct disorder. Dr. Breggin's book validates my doubts with pages of scientific documentation and explains how virtually a whole nation--parents, doctors, mental health professionals and teachers--promote and believe in this concept. It's a must read for anyone involved in ADD/ADHD evaluations/treatments. The book focuses on four areas: the fallacy of ADD/ADHD-including the unscientific method of diagnosis and the misuse of studies used by the advocates of the "disorder"; the documented dangers of Ritalin-- what it does to the brain, why it does not help behavioral problems and the damage it can cause; the politics behind the ADHD/Ritalin lobby; and what parents can do to help their children without labels and drugs. This is such an important book. If you've read the others, you must read this!! Another good book is The Myth of the ADD Child by Thomas Armstrong PhD.
Rating:
Summary: Check Out ... Dr. Breggin Has an Entire Chapter
Review: Dr. Breggin forgets one small thing, the patient. Most people stop taking medication as soon as they feel better. They continue to do so only from fear of symptoms returning or their actual return. No one is forcing anyone else to continue to use any medication. Only the symptoms are. He has to live with a severely hyperactive child before being able to judge parents, doctors or drug manufacturers so harshly. These medications allow a child to express their real academic skills, their real loving personalities, and their real desire for friends. When off it, all they receive are retaliation for their dangerous and disruptive behaviors, and failing grades from an inability to finish showing what they know on tests and homework assignments. As to that attorney seeking to expand areas of product liability, try expanding it to the legal profession. It is long overdue for a series of massive class actions against lawyers for what they have done to this country.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, Please!
Review: Dr. Breggin has become a leading critic of the standard psychiatric approach to labeling and treating children with challenging behavioral symptoms. This book is a thorough examination of the scientific debate as well as political, economic, and psychosocial factors involved in the issue. Breggin makes many excellent points in this book about the interactions between body, mind, and environment that are largely ignored by most medical and mental health professionals. Drugs are routinely used as a form of chemical restraint, even though the withdrawal phase of the drugs actually triggers the "imbalances" and likelihood of misbehaviors that they are supposed to treat. Those who believe the medications are a wonderful way of controlling behavior believe this out of ignorance of alternative approaches to really helping the child become physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy. It is easy to just continually drug someone into submission, but in other contexts this is usually considered an abuse of human rights. The lack of responsibility and commitment by adults toward finding ways of helping children develop positive motivation and social skills is certainly one factor in the epidemic of psychiatric labeling and psychotropic drug prescriptions. The incompetence of physicians to identify real physical issues that impact children's ability to concentrate, such as poor nutrition, neurological impairment, allergies, exposure to drugs and toxins, and hormonal disturbances, is another factor. The propaganda and social programming that falsely claim mental illness is biologically determined is another factor. Having worked in the mental health field in Florida as a licensed counselor for several years, I have observed much of what Breggin talks about. Children who are labeled "ADD" in one school or home environment suddenly appear normal when their family environment becomes less stressful or when they are placed with a more compassionate teacher or in a less stressful educational setting, such as a Montessori school. When children form more positive relationships they are often suddenly able to concentrate adequately and remain more calm when necessary. Meanwhile, I have seen many children who became depressed or bipolar as an apparent effect of their medications, and have seen no lasting progress associated with drug treatments. That adults treat highly active and inattentive children poorly and treat subdued children better is true, but that is a problem of the adults that is being displaced onto the children who are given drugs that are addictive and perpetuate the child's lack of self-motivated control. There are multiple parenting and educational programs that have successfully reversed "ADD/ADHD" behavior patterns, even in supposedly severe cases, by merely helping adults minimize their emotional reactions to the targeted negative behaviors and increasing positive social attention given to the children. The physical correlates of ADD/ADHD symptom patterns are typically modulated by the psychological factors present in the individual, and cannot usually be considered to be the root causal source of the symptoms. Various alternative medicine approaches, from naturopathy, oriental medicine, energy medicine, mind-body stress management, nutritional therapy, and more have shown usefulness in reversing the ADD/ADHD symptoms, as these target various levels of the pattern, ranging from emotions, stress, and subtle energy disturbances to nutritional imbalances and metabolic disturbances, with the physical disturbances usually being triggered or facilitated in some way by non-physical (psychological & psychosocial) issues. Mental health clinics and physicians have become increasingly controlled and programmed by the pharmaceutical industry. They are showered with gifts, including boxloads of office supplies (featuring drug ads) and brochures with misleading information about "disorders" and pharmaceutical company ads for patients as well as trips and meals, typically delivered by attractive young women and less often by young men pharmaceutical reps [all of whom become speechless or irritated when you try to discuss the actual safety and efficacy of the drugs with them beyond letting them repeat their script]. I have seen all this myself, and see the pharmaceutical paraphernalia all over the office of the agency I've worked at, as well as seeing psychiatrists routinely prescribe drugs with no medical exam or any other basis than the intent to briefly manipulate mood and behavior - things anyone could do using street drugs, which happen to manipulate neurotransmitter systems the same way that prescribed drugs do. I commend Dr. Breggin for his efforts to wake people from the massive deceptions and denials governing mental health care and the topic of ADD/ADHD.
Rating:
Summary: Solid Critique of ADHD Labels And Drug Treatments
Review: Dr. Breggin has become a leading critic of the standard psychiatric approach to labeling and treating children with challenging behavioral symptoms. This book is a thorough examination of the scientific debate as well as political, economic, and psychosocial factors involved in the issue. Breggin makes many excellent points in this book about the interactions between body, mind, and environment that are largely ignored by most medical and mental health professionals. Drugs are routinely used as a form of chemical restraint, even though the withdrawal phase of the drugs actually triggers the "imbalances" and likelihood of misbehaviors that they are supposed to treat. Those who believe the medications are a wonderful way of controlling behavior believe this out of ignorance of alternative approaches to really helping the child become physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy. It is easy to just continually drug someone into submission, but in other contexts this is usually considered an abuse of human rights. The lack of responsibility and commitment by adults toward finding ways of helping children develop positive motivation and social skills is certainly one factor in the epidemic of psychiatric labeling and psychotropic drug prescriptions. The incompetence of physicians to identify real physical issues that impact children's ability to concentrate, such as poor nutrition, neurological impairment, allergies, exposure to drugs and toxins, and hormonal disturbances, is another factor. The propaganda and social programming that falsely claim mental illness is biologically determined is another factor. Having worked in the mental health field in Florida as a licensed counselor for several years, I have observed much of what Breggin talks about. Children who are labeled "ADD" in one school or home environment suddenly appear normal when their family environment becomes less stressful or when they are placed with a more compassionate teacher or in a less stressful educational setting, such as a Montessori school. When children form more positive relationships they are often suddenly able to concentrate adequately and remain more calm when necessary. Meanwhile, I have seen many children who became depressed or bipolar as an apparent effect of their medications, and have seen no lasting progress associated with drug treatments. That adults treat highly active and inattentive children poorly and treat subdued children better is true, but that is a problem of the adults that is being displaced onto the children who are given drugs that are addictive and perpetuate the child's lack of self-motivated control. There are multiple parenting and educational programs that have successfully reversed "ADD/ADHD" behavior patterns, even in supposedly severe cases, by merely helping adults minimize their emotional reactions to the targeted negative behaviors and increasing positive social attention given to the children. The physical correlates of ADD/ADHD symptom patterns are typically modulated by the psychological factors present in the individual, and cannot usually be considered to be the root causal source of the symptoms. Various alternative medicine approaches, from naturopathy, oriental medicine, energy medicine, mind-body stress management, nutritional therapy, and more have shown usefulness in reversing the ADD/ADHD symptoms, as these target various levels of the pattern, ranging from emotions, stress, and subtle energy disturbances to nutritional imbalances and metabolic disturbances, with the physical disturbances usually being triggered or facilitated in some way by non-physical (psychological & psychosocial) issues. Mental health clinics and physicians have become increasingly controlled and programmed by the pharmaceutical industry. They are showered with gifts, including boxloads of office supplies (featuring drug ads) and brochures with misleading information about "disorders" and pharmaceutical company ads for patients as well as trips and meals, typically delivered by attractive young women and less often by young men pharmaceutical reps [all of whom become speechless or irritated when you try to discuss the actual safety and efficacy of the drugs with them beyond letting them repeat their script]. I have seen all this myself, and see the pharmaceutical paraphernalia all over the office of the agency I've worked at, as well as seeing psychiatrists routinely prescribe drugs with no medical exam or any other basis than the intent to briefly manipulate mood and behavior - things anyone could do using street drugs, which happen to manipulate neurotransmitter systems the same way that prescribed drugs do. I commend Dr. Breggin for his efforts to wake people from the massive deceptions and denials governing mental health care and the topic of ADD/ADHD.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent resource guide for parents and clinicians.
Review: Dr. Breggin provides a comprehensive and very understandable examination of Ritalin and its use in treating behavioral disorders in children. The amount of detail provided into this drug and its weaknesses is excellent and a vital resource to clinicians and parents. In addition to critically examining this highly touted remedy for ADHD, Dr. Breggin provides insightful and effective alternatives to treating behavioral problems rather than relying on Ritalin. Moreover, a thoughtful and exhaustive review of research is provided regarding the "biological basis" of this disorder is provided. As a clinician that works with children with the ADHD diagnosis on a dialy basis, I have found this book invaluable. I highly recommend it! --Robert Foltz, M.A.
Rating:
Summary: It was a thoughtful presentation of a controversial topic.
Review: Dr. Breggin takes the reader on an important journey. He begins with well documented descriptions of the adverse effects of stimulant drugs, and concludes with valuable comments on effective parenting and caring. In between, he talks about what is wrong with the way we view our children. He also rightly criticizes the way that drug/pharmaceutical companies manipulate the process to get their drugs approved and promoted. If you have children in school, and you have time to read only one book this year, this must be the one.
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