1 in 5 Young Adults Have Personality Disorder, Study Finds

[Ivor the Engineer]

Does anyone else have suspicion that mental disorders are being manufactured by psychiatrists/counsellors/psychologists, and in the process we're being turned into a society of eternal victims?

<snip>

I think that's known as SMMD :- Suspicion of Manufactured Mental Disorders.

I'm not sure what the treatment is, though.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

Good one Ivor.

I think the treatment for a case as serious as Gumboot's is a diet of bread and water for the rest of his life, the theory being that if his food is that bland, the blandness will filter through to his imagination to stop him imagining more things like that. It's still an experimental treatment, but if we put him on the regime, it'll help us determine whether it works.

On the other hand, drug companies have been accused of marketing a mental disorder or two, overblowing the statistics for the number of people who have them, and touting their drug as the wonder solution, so it's considered as treatment before the therapy that might be a whole lot better for sufferers. I linked to this in another thread the other day: First, you market the disease... then you push the pills to treat it. (Guardian, July 2002)

 

[Dancing David]

Let's say a child displays 5 of the 9 attention difficulties, 2 of the 4 hyperactivity behaviours and 2 of the 4 impulsivity behaviours. The child has had these difficulties at home and at school for 12 months.

Then the doctor can either investigate further, provide a diagnosis when it is not warranted and in either case should refer for behavioral intervention or education for the parents.

Using the criteria in my previous post, this child does not have ADHD. But it is plain to the world that this child needs help. Treatment for ADHD would be just as appropriate for this child as it would for one who managed to cross the arbitrary threshold for an official diagnosis of ADHD.

Appeal to populism does not mean that the child warrants medical treatment. The threshold is set at the level of functional impairment.

Again you check the bridge to see if it will fail , right? That is the job, not housing renovation.

If it is not a failing bridge then your provider does not pay you, except for the inspection.

Counseling and behavioral interventions would be appropriate.

I fail to see how is that an appropriate analogy. A physician is assessing a single child's medical needs. Previous or future children to be evaluated are irrelevant.

But the level of imapirment is not, if a child does not meet the criteria for treatment/diagnosis then why would you prescribe them medication?

As for intervention in school, that would be nice, but there is a severe lack of funding for services.

In the US the largest unserved population is the 'slow learner', these are the children whose IQ is above seventy but below 85. They have great difficulty learning at the same pace as other students, and they fall behind. But they do not qualify for special help, because they are not 'developmentaly disabled' to the point that the state says they need help, or they do not qualify for special education (where you do not do as well in class as you do in testing).

So there is somewhere between 5%-205 of students who are falling behind every year, by middle schools they often read at a first to second grade level.

So services are not provided to every one, and especialy a psychiatrist is going to treat only individuals with impaired functioning. (Hopefully)

For example, in Illinois dyslexia is not a reason to receive special education.

According to who? The results of the trial which looked into this did not reach that conclusion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7090011.stm

Um I did not say all children living with ADHD, I meant a specific set of that population.

Are you really citing a newspaper again? Can you cite the actaul research?

I agree.



So what are the advantages of (being classed as) having a mental or developmental disorder? From my own experience I can't say I've noticed any positives from having a stutter.

I don't know what speech services were available to you, for the student who has difficulty speaking clearly, the state requires they be indentified as having a speech problem to recieve supportive servives.

Whcih part of the labeling below was harm full or not helpful ?

And having a label applied which cannot be removed is going to help them how? By making sure they don't even try certain activities because people with ADHD struggle to perform them satisfactorily?

Why assume supportive services are going to stigmatize the recipient?

I see that labeling has three sources in this case
-self labeling
-categorical/professional labeling
-social/peer labeling

There is only one benefit to the second one, that is to identify an issue that is going to cause the student to:

-fail to achieve their academic potential
-cause disruption to the class room enviroment

That is what the label ADHD is about, so I don't see your point, the label is not an excuse on anyone's part, not for staff to shame students or for students to be unaccountable.

So if the student is at very high risk of failure to achieve in the academic environment (and by that I mean fail out and stop trying) or their behavior is disruptive to the classroom (as in extremely disruptive), then why would one choose to not address the situation?

 

[Iconoclast08]

Does anyone else have suspicion that mental disorders are being manufactured by psychiatrists/counsellors/psychologists, and in the process we're being turned into a society of eternal victims?

Manufactured? What do you mean by that, precisely? Do you mean in a totally artificial sense? As in the engineering of fictitious conditions of mind and just-so stories about people who allegedly suffer from bed-ridden depression, debilitating anxiety, and disabling symptoms of hallucinations, delusions, severe withdrawal, and/or disorganized thinking (schizophrenia)? I don't think you could possibly mean it in this way, but perhaps you should clarify.

While certain categorical disorder labels certainly have the potential to be abused and over-diagnosed by poorly trained or unscrupulous mental health professionals, that does not mean that these conditions are "manufactured" in the sense of total "I made it up to control people and make money" proportions. That's just nonsense. And potential for abuse doesn't mean that such symptom constellations, which we may "label" something for the sake of more efficient communication and organization, do not exist (e.g., taking reported symptoms such as severe lack of interest or pleasure in activities typically enjoyed in the past, severe feelings of feeling down/blue/depressed more days than not compared to baseline, sleeping a lot more or a lot less than usual, etc., and calling them "depression").

The power of suggestion can be sufficient to create fake realities, and these people have the perfect opportunity and perfect motivation to suggest mental trauma that isn't there.

Very true. Elizabeth Loftus and her colleagues made this painfully evident with research into "false memory syndrome" (e.g., the "Satanic abuse" scare in the 1980's). But again, as Dancing David has been discussing in previous posts, these sorts of issues are not grounds for blanket criticism of an entire field or accusations verging on paranoia.

Okay that's enough woo from me.

Indeed. Either you are being purposefully provocative with over-generalizations and realize that this is rapidly approaching the "nonsense" category or you don't have much knowledge or background in these fields of inquiry.

 

[Dancing David]

Ivor,

The causes ADHD are largely still being investigated and many different mechanism are suggested, the most prevalent being that there is low activity in areas concerning, what else, regulation of attention.

Most researchers state clearly that ADHD is heterogeneous and that symptom logy most likely has multiple sites of action and pathways of effect.

However the studies that indicated this are rather, under debate. There are many trials currently underway to refine this. (I reference first a paper that reviews this)

Then follow a very small sample of the papers one can find by putting ‘ADHD neurological’ into PubMed search. I have not shown the vast majority of them and have just tried to give a sample of research that may lead to an understanding of ADHD at the brain function level.

There were many papers about epilepsy and other disorders that were not relevant, although ADHD was often co-morbid. There are also a number of speculative papers about the actual mechanisms of ADHD.



Interesting PDF on ADHD brain imaging:
http://psychrights.org/research/Digest/NLPs/neruoimagingupdate.pdf

Review of genetic information and neurological signs of ADHD:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...nel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum


Small study about neurological testing vs. assessment of ADHD
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...nel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Study about soft neurological signs and ADHD:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...nel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum


Sample size not given noting changes in motor skills and dysrythmia male vs. female
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...nel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

 

[Baby Nemesis]

I have obsessive compulsive disorder myself and in my day we had no mental health services in college or anywhere esle unless your parents sent you to a psychiatrist. This dosorder cost me decent grades and while I dod get a college education my GPA was only 2.8.

Here's an interesting website about OCD with an interesting self-help technique on it.

 

[Kotatsu]

Those who drew that 1 in 5 conclusion must be sick. Alternatively, maybe abnormality in their eyes is the norm in our eye.
After reading the OP, I started wondering: am I the 1 in 5?

"Think about your four best friends. If they seem okay, then you're the one!"

 

[Baby Nemesis]

How interesting is this! An article from another thread. Poor Children's Brain Activity Resembles That Of Stroke Victims, EEG Shows.

It says something very similar to a comment I made earlier in this thread, about how something that can appear very much like brain damage can actually be abnormalities that aren't permanent but can be reversed with cognitive-behavioural-type interventions. Perhaps this could often be the case with children with ADHD. From the article:

In a study recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, scientists at UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and the School of Public Health report that normal 9- and 10-year-olds differing only in socioeconomic status have detectable differences in the response of their prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is critical for problem solving and creativity. ...

"Kids from lower socioeconomic levels show brain physiology patterns similar to someone who actually had damage in the frontal lobe as an adult," said Robert Knight, director of the institute and a UC Berkeley professor of psychology. "We found that kids are more likely to have a low response if they have low socioeconomic status, though not everyone who is poor has low frontal lobe response." ...

The researchers suspect that stressful environments and cognitive impoverishment are to blame, since in animals, stress and environmental deprivation have been shown to affect the prefrontal cortex. UC Berkeley's Marian Diamond, professor emeritus of integrative biology, showed nearly 20 years ago in rats that enrichment thickens the cerebral cortex as it improves test performance. And as Boyce noted, previous studies have shown that children from poor families hear 30 million fewer words by the time they are four than do kids from middle-class families.

"In work that we and others have done, it really looks like something as simple and easily done as talking to your kids" can boost prefrontal cortex performance, Boyce said.

"We are certainly not blaming lower socioeconomic families for not talking to their kids – there are probably a zillion reasons why that happens," he said. "But changing developmental outcomes might involve something as accessible as helping parents to understand that it is important that kids sit down to dinner with their parents, and that over the course of that dinner it would be good for there to be a conversation and people saying things to each other." ...

Boyce's UBC colleague, Adele Diamond, showed last year that 5- and 6-year-olds with impaired executive functioning, that is, poor problem solving and reasoning abilities, can improve their academic performance with the help of special activities, including dramatic play.

Bunge hopes that, with fMRI, she can show improvements in academic performance as a result of these games, actually boosting the activity of the prefrontal cortex.

"People have tried for a long time to train reasoning, largely unsuccessfully," Bunge said. "Our question is, 'Can we replicate these initial findings and at the same time give kids the tools to succeed?'"

 

[Baby Nemesis]

Hey, we knew it, didn't we! I wonder how many of those personality disorders have something to do with This:

Animal Studies Show Sugar Can Be Addictive:

A Princeton University scientist presented new evidence demonstrating that sugar can be an addictive substance, wielding its power over the brains of lab animals in a manner similar to many drugs of abuse.

Hoebel has shown that rats eating large amounts of sugar when hungry, a phenomenon he describes as sugar-bingeing, undergo neurochemical changes in the brain that appear to mimic those produced by substances of abuse, including cocaine, morphine and nicotine. Sugar induces behavioral changes, too. "In
certain models, sugar-bingeing causes long-lasting effects in the brain and increases the inclination to take other drugs of abuse, such as alcohol," Hoebel said.

Hoebel and his team also have found that a chemical known as dopamine is released in a region of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens when hungry rats drink a sugar solution. This chemical signal is thought to trigger motivation and, eventually with repetition, addiction. ...

In experiments, the researchers have been able to induce signs of withdrawal in the lab animals by taking away their sugar supply. The rats' brain levels of dopamine dropped and, as a result, they exhibited anxiety as a sign of withdrawal. The rats' teeth chattered, and the creatures were unwilling to venture forth into the open arm of their maze, preferring to stay in a tunnel area. Normally rats like to explore their environment, but the rats in sugar withdrawal were too anxious to explore. ...

That oh-so-controversial Human Givens book Freedom From Addiction goes into detail about dopamine increasing people's cravings.

It, too, talks about an experiment done with rats, but a different one.

It talks about how people can find it easier to give up addictions if they have enjoyable things to do in life, so giving them up doesn't feel like so much of a loss. It says an experiment was done where rats were split up into three groups. In one, all the rats were separated from each other and each put in tiny cages all by themselves with nothing to do. But they did have two lots of water to drink - some plain water, and some with morphine in it. They consistently chose the morphine-laced water over the plain water, as might be expected.

Another group of rats was put in pairs in larger pens, so they at least had a bit of company and more room to move. It was found that they drank a lot less of the water with morphine in it.

The third group of rats was put together in a large enclosure that was made as near as possible to the environment the researchers thought rats like best. They called it Rat Park. They found that the rats in there didn't want to have any of the water with morphine in it, always preferring the plain water.

But when they swapped the rats around, so the rats that had been in Rat Park were put in the small cages, those rats started always drinking the water with morphine in it. And when the rats that had been in the little cages were put in Rat Park, they stopped, and behaved like the other ones had, preferring the plain water.

So the experimenters concluded that drug use has a lot to do with how well people's needs are being met. The book uses that to illustrate a point it makes about how people will find it easier to break free of addiction if they have those emotional needs met I mentioned earlier.

 

[INRM]

It's only because the idea of what constitutes normal has become so narrow and rigidly defined, that normality is actually in danger of becoming abnormality. The normal are now a minority, making normality fall outside the norm.

That'll put a crimp in your cornflakes.

I understand. I personally think you're right.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

This thread was great. Yes, it was full of arguments, but for the most part, they were of a decent quality. Now here's an interesting thing:

... I did find this website, though, which set off the B.S. alarm in my head in more than one area:
http://www.hgi.org.uk/archive/psychosis.htm

The schizophrenia section in particular seemed rife with wildly speculative departures from a tiny number of cherry-picked studies with no references or citations of any kind. ...

I agree that no one should put too much weight on their ideas for now. They're only in the theory stage. In fact, their language is quite tentative itself in places, so they don't seem to be proclaiming it as a cure-all, but suggesting more needs to be found out. But I wonder if when more is discovered about the way the brain works, there will be discovered to be something in the ideas.

The article theorises that schizophrenia is like being stuck in a dream world because of a glitch in the way the brain's begun to function, and that auditory hallucinations are actually one part of the brain misinterpreting the activity of another part as some entity coming from outside:

Psychotic patients may also talk about hearing voices. In the dream state, which is the province of the right hemisphere of the brain, people are not usually capable of independent thought, the province of the left hemisphere, because the mind is ‘locked’ into the metaphorical script of the dream. But if an individual is trapped in a waking REM state, with waking reality happening around them, there is still likely to be activity in the left hemisphere of the brain.

We suggest that, because the REM state operates through metaphor, the only way it could make sense of these independent left brain thoughts would be to create the metaphor of hearing voices, or being watched, or spied upon by aliens — which easily becomes paranoia.

So they think it's just one part of the brain sensing the other.

Whether that really is what's going on, there are other researchers that have found that people can get weird impressions of things, such as feeling presences, when in reality it seems to be one part of the brain sensing the other.

From an article called Experiencing God:
The Neurology of the Spiritual Experience

There are two temporal lobes in the brain, one on each side. The one on the left, in most people, is the dominant one, responsible for language, which becomes dominant when we first learn language as children. The one on the right, non-dominant, contributes to the sense of self with constant communication with its opposite colleague. But being on the far side of the brain, sometimes the communications get out of whack, often as a result of stress or disease, and the forty hertz component falls out of sync. When this happens, the result is that the normally silent right-hand sense of self becomes experienced as a separate presence by the left-hand sense of self.

This is the experience of the God presence. There is an overwhelming sense of presence, an inescapable feeling that someone is there. But when the forty hertz component is deeply attenuated or entirely absent from, say, the left side, and there's no "self" experience occurring, the feeling of unity with infinity is occuring with a sense of an overwhelming presence resulting from the continued operation of the right hand side, there is no way to describe it other than feeling that one has experienced the "infinite presence." Hence the God experience.

The article's talking about the work of Michael Persinger, who's apparently found that directing certain types of electro-magnetic fields into the brain can cause mystical or other experiences in subjects.

So is it possible that schizophrenia is some kind of variation in the phenomenon? It's an interesting idea.

In fact, perhaps by directing different types of electro-magnetic fields into the brain, it's possible to create schizophrenia-like symptoms while it's going on. If they recreated them, they'd know what parts of the brain were communicating differently and how things needed to change to get back to normal.

Perhaps there's an easier way of discovering that though. I wonder if any such research is going on, and how much there is in the theory that one part of the brain is just misinterpreting signals from the other as a separate presence in schizophrenia.

 

[MikeMangum]

I do think there is a lot to say about this. For instance, they argue that these disorders are not diseases, therefor, there are no mental disorders, and it is systematically used to stigmatize people who we do not conform. I don't think that is correct.

I think there is some element of truth to it, especially regarding things like ADHD. It is amazing how many boys are prescribed ritalyn because normal boy behavior is considered a "mental illness" or "behavioral disorder". One of my best friends has 2 boys, and the school they went to was trying to push him to put both of them on ritalyn. The school had determined somehow that both of them had ADHD. There was nothing wrong them that couldn't be explained by the two facts that each had a Y chromosome and each was pre-pubescent.

 

[king catfish]

Let's see....we don't have to fight lions or bears anymore unless we want to. Some of actually seek fighting lions and bears for the "thrill," and some think that's missing from our lives now.

There are a lot of us. So many, we can't form the close bonds in small, tight-knit communities we used to have to form a few thousand years ago to survive. We don't know each other, and that's scary. There's too damned many of us to know anymore.

We don't work the way we used to. We sit a lot. We ride a lot. We mostly don't farm, don't hunt, or even have to get our own water.

We end up with a lot of repressed hostility, anxiety, confusion...we have too many toys, too many things to plug in and program and pay for. We have too many of us to compete with, to the point the competition stops centering around who does the best job, but silly things like who looks better, speaks better, or knows the right people. We don't know how to get what we want, and half the time, we don't even know what we want or why we even want it.




Who would all this, and more, not make a little crazy?

Nominated.

 

[Dancing David]

I think there is some element of truth to it, especially regarding things like ADHD. It is amazing how many boys are prescribed ritalyn because normal boy behavior is considered a "mental illness" or "behavioral disorder". One of my best friends has 2 boys, and the school they went to was trying to push him to put both of them on ritalyn. The school had determined somehow that both of them had ADHD. There was nothing wrong them that couldn't be explained by the two facts that each had a Y chromosome and each was pre-pubescent.

One anecdote does not a case make.

Where and when, what assesment tools were used?

 

[MikeMangum]

One anecdote does not a case make.

Where and when, what assesment tools were used?

Assessment tools? That's a good one. [Foghorn Leghorn]You made a funny, son![/Foghorn Leghorn]

This was about 5 years ago or so in Woodinville, WA. The assessment was "these are boys and they don't sit quietly in class, ergo ritalin will make it easier for me to teach".

It is so anecdotal that Congress passed a law banning schools from requiring students to get a prescription for a psychotropic drug as a condition of attendance.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004

(25) PROHIBITION ON MANDATORY MEDICATION-

`(A) IN GENERAL- The State educational agency shall prohibit State and local educational agency personnel from requiring a child to obtain a prescription for a substance covered by the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.) as a condition of attending school, receiving an evaluation under subsection (a) or (c) of section 614, or receiving services under this title.

`(B) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION- Nothing in subparagraph (A) shall be construed to create a Federal prohibition against teachers and other school personnel consulting or sharing classroom-based observations with parents or guardians regarding a student's academic and functional performance, or behavior in the classroom or school, or regarding the need for evaluation for special education or related services under paragraph (3).

That doesn't mean that parents aren't still pressured by school officials to put their children (primarily boys) on ritalin.

ETA: and my point is that, in this case at least, it has almost nothing to do with the health and well being of the children and is almost completely an attempt to control behavior via a drug. Why require a teacher to learn how to deal with rambunctious 9 year old boys when the boys can simply be sedated?

 

[quadraginta]

Assessment tools? That's a good one. [Foghorn Leghorn]You made a funny, son![/Foghorn Leghorn]

This was about 5 years ago or so in Woodinville, WA. The assessment was "these are boys and they don't sit quietly in class, ergo ritalin will make it easier for me to teach".

It is so anecdotal that Congress passed a law banning schools from requiring students to get a prescription for a psychotropic drug as a condition of attendance.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004


That doesn't mean that parents aren't still pressured by school officials to put their children (primarily boys) on ritalin.

ETA: and my point is that, in this case at least, it has almost nothing to do with the health and well being of the children and is almost completely an attempt to control behavior via a drug. Why require a teacher to learn how to deal with rambunctious 9 year old boys when the boys can simply be sedated?

I'm not quite clear from reading your posts if your opinion is that ADHD is a misused diagnosis or if you think that there is no merit to any such diagnosis, and that the disorder does not exist.

Could you elaborate?

 

[Dancing David]

Assessment tools? That's a good one. [Foghorn Leghorn]You made a funny, son![/Foghorn Leghorn]

Not really, if you have unethical people who aren't licensed to do assesments, don't know how to do assesments and then try to do diagnosis and assesment, that is criminal.

It does not mean that ADHD doesn't exist.

But please if you wish to defend another point please do so.

there are ways to asses ADHD.

This was about 5 years ago or so in Woodinville, WA. The assessment was "these are boys and they don't sit quietly in class, ergo ritalin will make it easier for me to teach".

And so they were wrong, if you were there, then you can state who did or did not do the assesment. If there was not a trained professional then that would indicate a severe lack of ethics.

It is so anecdotal that Congress passed a law banning schools from requiring students to get a prescription for a psychotropic drug as a condition of attendance.

Big whoop and not germane to the argument, it is illegal to require anyone to take medication, in Illinois you can not force medication except in a situation where the person's behavior its threat to life and limb. And that decision is subject to court review. It is usually only done whena person is actively engaged in assault, and rarely at that.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004


That doesn't mean that parents aren't still pressured by school officials to put their children (primarily boys) on ritalin.

And again the request for evidence that there is a need for such treatment is a reasonable one, and in Illinois it is subject to a huge court hassle if the procedure is not followed. (Court hassle for the school and real trouble, it involve the phrase 'due process') But that does not mean that it does not cut both ways, there are still children who have ADHD, bipolar disorder, Tourette's, autism and other conditions that impact their ability to function in school.

ETA: and my point is that, in this case at least, it has almost nothing to do with the health and well being of the children and is almost completely an attempt to control behavior via a drug. Why require a teacher to learn how to deal with rambunctious 9 year old boys when the boys can simply be sedated?

Ah, well that shows you do not know what Ritalin or more commonly now a days the generic Methylphenidate HCl is not a sedative, it is a stimulant.

Should you give it to a child that does not have ADHD, the effect is rather pronounced and opposite to those who do have ADHD, it causes them to bounce off teh walls and rocket around. It does not cause the increase in attention that it does in people with ADHD.

Now all behavioral strategies should be tried as you 'walk the continuum' prior to any suggestion that a visit to the doctor might be warranted.

 

[Meadmaker]

What? People aged 19 to 25 abuse alcohol? I'm shocked. Truly amazed, that I am.

I love reading those studies. I remember my own youth. Well, I remember most of my own youth. Some parts of it I was too drunk to remember.

When I hear about binge drinking among youth these days, my only reaction is to feel nostalgic.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

How interesting is this! An article from another thread. Poor Children's Brain Activity Resembles That Of Stroke Victims, EEG Shows.

It says something very similar to a comment I made earlier in this thread, about how something that can appear very much like brain damage can actually be abnormalities that aren't permanent but can be reversed with cognitive-behavioural-type interventions. Perhaps this could often be the case with children with ADHD. From the article:

Here's an article that's related in some ways: An Intervention That Can Reduce Hostile Perceptions In Children With Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

It's about how such children are often not good at making friends because they see aggression where there is in reality none, and act as if there was, which ruins friendships, and programs are being developed to teach them to interact better.

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) has been linked to a wide array of developmental deficits, including significant impairments in social skills. An examination of a social- skills intervention called Children's Friendship Training found that it led to a decrease in hostile attributions or perceptions of children with PAE. ...

"These social problems are due, in part, to the neurological and cognitive deficits known to be associated with prenatal exposure to alcohol," said Joseph M. Price, a research scientist in the Children and Adolescent Services Research Center at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. "However, children prenatally exposed to alcohol are also more likely to be exposed to negative early-life experiences - such as unresponsive caregivers, maltreatment, disruptions in early parent-child interactions, and out-of-home placements - all of which are known to contribute to behavior and social problems during childhood and adolescence." ...

I wonder how they think they can tell how much of the behaviour they can attribute to each cause.

Also, they're wondering if they can actually reduce the damage done pre-natally with their programs. It'll be interesting to know if they manage it.

 

[INRM]

I'd have to agree with slingblade's assessment on this issue

"It's only because the idea of what constitutes normal has become so narrow and rigidly defined, that normality is actually in danger of becoming abnormality. The normal are now a minority, making normality fall outside the norm."