The (Un)real Existence of ADHD_Criteria, Functions, and Forms of the Diagnostic Entity

  • 2026/03/19 00:54


From back cover:

“The contemporary conceptualization of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as a complex, multifactorial neurodevelopmental disorder cannot be understood as such without a complex assemblage of political, economic, and cultural processes that deem the conceptualization to be valuable and useful. In this article we use the notion of psychiatrization as a lens through which to see parts of these processes that make up ADHD what it is. In the first part of the article, we critically assess the scientific basis of the ADHD diagnosis via examining its diagnostic criteria as presented in the current fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the so called “Bible” of modern psychiatry. The second part of the article asks what is done with the ADHD diagnostic entity and with the idea that it represents a natural neurodevelopmental state within an individual—something an individual has—as represented in the DSM-5. Drawn from our previous research, we analyze how ADHD becomes real in discourse practice as a powerful semiotic mediator through analysis of the various functions and forms in which it takes shape in institutional, social, and individual levels. We conclude that the frequent changes in the diagnostic criteria of ADHD do not reflect any real scientific progress. Among other reasons, they change to match better the maneuvers of individuals when navigating an increasingly psychiatrized society in the search for recognition, support, category membership, immunity, sympathy, and sense of belonging…

…ADHD is better understood as a social category that eliminates human diversity and enforces the standard model of what an individual should behave and be like in order to navigate within the cultural boundaries of normalcy and be a productive citizen.”

The (Un)real Existence of ADHD_Criteria, Functions, and Forms of the Diagnostic Entity pdf

There Are No “Chemical Imbalances”: Exposing the Profit Motive Behind Psychiatry and the Myth of the “Chemical Imbalance” Theory

  • 2026/03/17 02:54


From back cover:

“…biopsychiatric theory and research resulted in a tidal wave of sales for the makers of Thorazine®, the first neuroleptic drug (meaning lobotomizing or brain-disabling drug – modern biopsychiatrists prefer to call this class of drug “antipsychotic”) and the increasing number of drugs like it. These companies, in turn, funded such research, for money invested in biopsychiatry was virtually guaranteed to result in ever-growing sales of psychiatric drugs. Drugs for depression, mania, and other “mental illnesses” followed; each made a fortune for the company marketing it; and those companies funded further research in biopsychiatry. This unholy alliance between corporations and scientists continues to the present day, giving us drugs for everything from nervousness to PMS to kids that are difficult to manage. No other medical specialty is underwritten by the drug industry to a degree even vaguely approaching that of psychiatry. And with each new drug brought to market for some condition, the list of types of consciousness that are deprecated as “mental illness” grows.

…The hypothetical disturbances of neurochemical function that are said to underlie “mental illness” are just that: hypothetical. No experiment has ever shown that anyone has an “imbalance” of any neurotransmitters or any other brain chemicals. Nor could any conceivable experiment demonstrate the existence of a “chemical imbalance,” simply because no one, least of all the biopsychiatrists, has the slightest idea what a proper and healthy chemical “balance” would look like.”

There Are No Chemical Imbalances_ Exposing the Profit Motive Behind Psychiatry and the Myth of the “Chemical Imbalance” Theory pdf

Without Informed Consent: The Global Export of a Failed Paradigm of Care

  • 2026/03/12 02:09


From back cover:

“The discourse around health as a human rights issue usually focuses on access to medical treatment. However, the “right to health” begins with the right to informed consent about the merits of a treatment, which has been lacking as a US-constructed “disease” model of psychiatric care has been exported around the globe. The narrative that supported the adoption of the disease model told of how major psychiatric disorders were due to chemical imbalances in the brain, which could be treated by a second generation of psychiatric drugs that fixed those imbalances, much like “insulin for diabetes.” Randomized clinical trials had proven that antidepressants, antipsychotics, and other psychiatric drugs were safe and effective. However, missing from this narrative of medical progress were three key facts: that investigations failed to validate the chemical-imbalance theory of mental disorders; that studies of long-term outcomes regularly failed to show a benefit for the medicated patients; and that this model of care has led to poor public health outcomes in the United States and other developed countries. The principle of informed consent in medicine can be expanded to include the obligation of a medical specialty to be a reliable narrator of its own research, which provides a framework for understanding the violation of human rights that occurred with the exporting of a disease model of care to a global population.”

Without Informed Consent_The Global Export of a Failed Paradigm of Care pdf

There Is No Such Thing as a Psychiatric Disorder/Disease/ Chemical Imbalance

  • 2026/03/07 03:26


From back cover:

“In 1948, “neuropsychiatry” was divided into “neurology,” dealing with diseases, and “psychiatry,” dealing with emotions and behaviors. If there is a macroscopic, microscopic, or chemical abnormality, a disease is present. Nowhere in the brains or bodies of children said to have ADHD or any other psychiatric diagnosis has a disorder/disease been confirmed. Psychiatric drugs appeared in the 1950s. Psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry authored the “chemical imbalance” market strategy: they would call all things psychological “chemical imbalances” needing “chemical balancers” —pills.”

There Is No Such Thing as a Psychiatric Disorder_Disease_or_Chemical Imbalance pdf

The Conditioned Dysthymia of Civilization

  • 2022/07/17 08:43

From back cover:

“…And eventually, I came to believe that the problem had never been with my brain – at least, not in the way I had been taught. Without the pills, I was not ‘chemically imbalanced’. I was traumatized, yes – both on a personal level and on a societal level – but I was not broken, sick, or damaged.”

The Conditioned Dysthymia of Civilization pdf

Questioning (the authority of) Psychiatry

  • 2017/09/07 09:04

In 1961, a young psychiatrist by the name of Thomas S. Szasz initiated a one-man insurgency against his own profession. After years of being a practicing psychiatrist, he became an outspoken dissident, hell-bent on dynamiting the foundations of psychiatry.

“Why is self-control, autonomy, such a threat to authority? Because the person who controls himself, who is his own master, has no need for an authority to be his master. This, then, renders authority unemployed. What is he to do if he cannot control others? To be sure, he could mind his own business. But this is a fatuous answer, for those who are satisfied to mind their own business do not aspire to become authorities.” -Thomas S. Szasz

Questioning Psychiatry pdf

Reclaim Your Mind

  • 2017/09/07 08:14

Text from back cover:

“As far as we know, we only have one life on this planet. Why should we waste it trying to adapt ourselves to the always more demanding expectations of this insane society when there is so much to live, explore, experience and discover? Changes always come from below and the old structures of oppression will inexorably fall when we stop relying on them.”

Reclaim Your Mind pdf