The Good Weekend: Why has everyone suddenly got ADHD?

Jon Jureidini was recently interviewed by Amanda Hooton from the Sydney Morning Herald for her article ‘Why has everyone suddenly got ADHD?’ (published in Good Weekend on 09 Mar 2024, available at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/why-has-everyone-suddenly-got-adhd-20240214-p5f4rr.html).

In the article, Amanda explores the overdiagnosis of ADHD by interviewing people with the diagnosis, and Australian researchers and psychiatrists.

Mention of the CEMH and its collaborative network (the Critical Psychiatry Network Australasia):

Importantly, such research doesn’t question the existence of ADHD; only the best way to manage it. There are, however, some groups who struggle to believe ADHD is a real disorder at all.

“As an independent neurodevelopmental disorder, that can be treated by specific medications, it does not exist,” says Professor Jon Jureidini, child psychiatrist and head of the University of Adelaide’s Critical and Ethical Mental Health research group within the Robinson Research Institute. Jureidini is also the spokesperson of the Critical Psychiatry Network Australasia, a group of mental health professionals who believe ADHD is overdiagnosed and over-medicated.

“I know saying that makes me a pariah: we are treated like flat-earthers or climate change deniers.” (In fact, Jureidini is a respected professional from a mainstream institution – and though the group is a thorn in the side of received ADHD opinion, the ABC’s medical journalist Norman Swan has described it as an important means of “keeping everybody honest”.) Jureidini believes that “to gather a group of behaviours together and say, ‘Well, these behaviours are ADHD’ is to mistake description for explanation – and also to miss the chance of discovering the real root of people’s distress”.Hooton, 2024