A Disease Called Childhood - by Marilyn Wedge (Paperback)

About the Book

"Examines how myriad factors have come together, resulting in a generation addicted to stimulant drugs, and a medical system that encourages diagnosis instead of seeking other solutions ... Wedge draws on her decades of experience, as well as up-to-date research, to offer a new perspective on ADHD. Instead of focusing only on treating symptoms, she looks at the various potential causes of hyperactivity and inattention in children and examines behavioral and environmental, as opposed to strictly biological, treatments that have been proven to help"--Dust jacket flap of hardcover printing.

Book Synopsis

A family therapist offers a surprising new look at the rise of ADHD in America, arguing for a better paradigm for diagnosing and treating our children.

Since 1987, the number of American children diagnosed with ADHD has jumped from 3 to 11 percent. Meanwhile, ADHD rates remain relatively low in other countries such as France, Finland, the UK, and Japan, where the number of children diagnosed with and medicated for ADHD is 1 percent or less. Alarmed by this trend, family therapist Marilyn Wedge set out to understand how ADHD became an American epidemic--and to find out whether there are alternative treatments to powerful prescription drugs.

In A Disease Called Childhood, Wedge examines the factors that have created a generation addicted to stimulant drugs. Instead of focusing only on treating symptoms, she looks at the various potential causes of hyperactivity and inattention in children, and behavioral and environmental--as opposed to strictly biological--treatments that have been proven to help. In the process, Wedge offers a new paradigm for child mental health--and a better, happier, and less medicated future for American children.

Review Quotes

"This reflective, carefully researched and well-written book exposes the cultural wounding of our children by Big Pharma and ill-advised adults. Wedge's book is a much needed call to action for advocates of children everywhere."
--Mary Pipher, bestselling author of Reviving Ophelia and The Green Boat

"One of the most important and persuasive books I've read in years. If you are a parent, teacher, or doctor of a child diagnosed with ADHD, you owe it to the child to read this book."
--Irving Kirsch, author of The Emporer's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth

"In this ocmpelling book, Marilyn Wedge provides readers with an in-depth understanding of the rise of ADHD, a skillful deconstruction of the science used to promote the selling of stimulants for the disorder, and--most important of all--a guide for thinking of alternative approaches to helping our children. This is an antidote to the common wisdom about ADHD that our society needs to know."
--Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America

"A Disease Called Childhood is strongly recommended for parents who wish to understand the ADHD diagnosis and learn specific techniques that may be helpful for their children."
--Stuart Kaplan, M. D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Penn State College of Medicine and author of Your Child Does not Have Bipolar Disorder

"A Disease Called Childhood is a very readable analysis of the hoax that American psychiatry and Big Pharma have perpetrated for the past 40 years to redefine children's normal behaviors as some form of brain disease. Marilyn Wedge has written a proper antidote to this unnecessary medicalization, by encouraging us to re-examine the quality of the family, school, and social environments that we provide for our children."
--Stuart A. Kirk, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA, author of The Selling of DSM, Making Us Crazy, and Mad Science

"[Wedge's] affable approach and compassionate universal concern for the wellness of children are evident throughout. In an important read for open-minded parents, Wedge offers fresh perspectives and practical approaches to the continuing ADHD conundrum."
--Kirkus Reviews

"It's one of those parenting books that I just wanted to jump on the roof and shout about because it's really that good. It's not just for parents who are at the end of the road with schools wanting a psychiatric diagnosis for the behaviour of their children, it's also a roadmap on how to not end up there in the future."
--Blogher

About the Author

Marilyn Wedge is a practicing family therapist with a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Chicago, where she received a grant from the prestigious Danforth Foundation. She was a postdoctoral fellow in ethics at the Hastings Center, a nonprofit institution dedicated to bioethics. Wedge is the author of Suffer the Children: The Case Against Labeling and Medicating and an Effective Alternative, which was published in paperback with the title Pills Are Not for Preschoolers: A Drug-Free Approach for Troubled Kids.