Except that it is very common!
GPs in NSW will soon be able to diagnose and prescribe medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), under major changes that will slash appointment wait times and make it more affordable for children and adults to receive a diagnosis and treatment.
The NSW Labor government will pay for GPs to undergo the accredited training required for them to prescribe ADHD medication, which is restricted at present to psychiatrists and paediatricians. GPs will also be able to do a further tier of training to allow them to diagnose ADHD.
I’m not really going to argue that ADHD doesn’t exist. Undoubtedly there are some cases that are hardwired into physiology.
As well, I’m an economist, not a health worker so my view doesn’t count. My wife is a psychologist, so maybe that gives me 1% credibility.
But there are some observations I can make about ADHD that are economic in nature.
So, with caveats, let us begin the end of my popularity, such as it is, by saying that in my experience, ADHD is more anxiety that discrete medical condition.
As such, it is dangerous to pathologise it. There is the obvious risk of making the sufferer feel powerless, so whatever the trauma that underlies the anxiety (ADHD) is buried even deeper, and it will thus find expression elsewhere through bad behaviour, troubles with relationships, substance abuse, or some other outlet.
Second, and more troubling from an economic perspective, if ADHD is by and large anxiety, by making it an illness we also suppress the instincts that may be telling an anxious individual that they are in a situation dangerous to themselves.
Anxiety is not always unexpressed trauma, sometimes it is a warning. That boss at work you find awkward is actually a psychopath, or that working culture you work within, which seems fun but enables practical jokes, is actually dominated by a groomer or alliance builder, etc, neither of which is doing you any good. That is, anxiety (or ADHD) can be a vital warning sign that you are under external stressors that you may not have recognised and are not good for your well-being.
This is where I find the rise of ADHD economically questionable in two ways.
First, if you are given a pill to do a job you shouldn’t be doing, then that is putting the emphasis all upon you, the employee, while letting the employer entirely off the hook. This is actually blaming you for their transgressions.
Second, this leads to an army of drugged drones for corporations to exploit, turning medicine into a function of a Brave New World of production over humanity.
Let me repeat, I am not here to undermine anybody’s diagnosis of anything.
I’m simply suggesting that a broader assessment of circumstances might throw up an unexpected cause and effect, the changing of which might help more that suddenly everywhere “illness”.
