Normal?
By Dr. George T. Crabb
When Mark Twain's hero Huckleberry Finn was forced to study spelling for an hour every day, he said, "I couldn't stand it much longer. It was deadly dull, and I was fidgety." His teacher, Miss Watson, threatened him with eternal damnation if he didn't pay attention. Huck admits it didn't seem like such a bad alternative. "But I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewhere; all I wanted was a change. I warn't particular."
If that happened today, Huck would have been diagnosed as ADHD, put on Ritalin or Adderall, and forced to attend school, while the book about his adventures would never have been written.
The American Psychiatric Association invented the term ADHD in 1988 to give children with hyperactivity, impulsivity, short attention span and easy distractibility a diagnosis.
Who would have thought that 24 years later over 5 million American children (8%) between the ages of 3-17 would receive this diagnosis? That is one out of 12, with about half of those on medication.
Research found that a huge predictor for the diagnosis of ADHD was the age of the child with respect to their grade. In other words, younger children in a given grade, have more ADHD symptoms than older ones. No surprise there - younger kids clearly are more restless and less able to concentrate on a topic, or sit quietly in a classroom all day long. According to the research, approximately 1.1 million children received an inappropriate diagnosis and over 800,000 received stimulant medication due only to relative maturity.
Let me quickly point out that I am not opposed to medication to treat those with severe symptoms (Proverbs 17:22), but does one out of every 12 children really have ADHD?
I wish this was just about ADHD, but that's just what I've chosen to illustrate my point. I could have chosen bipolar disorder, OCD, generalized anxiety, social anxiety or many others because this is about the over-diagnosing, over-treating and over-medicating of psychiatric problems throughout America. The first psychiatric diagnostic manual, DSM-I, in 1952 had 106 disorders listed. The revised DSM-IV in 2000 had 365. The Bible warns us against any philosophy that does not follow the teachings of Jesus in Colossians 2:8, "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."
The only word for this is "insanity!"
The National Institute of Mental Health has found that 26% of Americans have a diagnosable psychiatric illness. That comes down to one out of every four of us - that's ridiculous!
A disorder of any kind is by definition something wrong, malfunctioning. A mental disorder is an irregularity in the functioning of the brain. If the brains of one quarter of the U.S. population are in disorder then something is very, very wrong with the human brain - or with our mental health system.
What has happened is that we are teaching our society and our children to chalk up life's difficulties to mental illness and then treat them with psychiatric drugs. In many cases we are renaming sin and calling it a disorder and then treating it with medications. What is needed is for us to acknowledge our sin and then seek God's forgiveness - Psalm 32:5.
Here is the problem: The profession of psychiatry has taken on the role of defining 'normal' in our society.
As we purposely shrink the box called normal and it gets smaller and smaller, the abnormal universe expands to include almost everyone. But the psychiatric world says, "don't worry, we can fix that with a pill and make you normal just like everyone else."
My profession has not only redefine mental health by over-diagnosing and over-medicating an ever expanding number of diagnoses, we are also taking away thehope of human nature by telling our patient's that they are inherently "abnormal" and need to be fixed.
The psychiatrist's office has gone from being the place no one would be caught dead visiting...to a place where a pill could fix anything. And psychiatry itself has gone from being stigmatized to glamorized.
We must help people to think that it's okay to be "not normal" and change the mindset that everything can be "fixed" with a pill or a few therapy sessions.
We must help them understand that what they perceive as their worst trait, may in reality be their best.
It's time for a new order of business in mental health, based on the premise that when you try to conform to a perceived "normal," you lose your uniqueness - which is the foundation for your individuality.
Psalm 139:14, "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
This article was written by Dr. George T. Crabb, an addictions expert and the medical consultant for Reformers Unanimous International. It is used with permission.
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