What is The Problem With ADHD Private Diagnosis?
Executive Summary
- ADHD checklists used in an ADHD private diagnosis have an undisclosed financial conflict and interference from pharmaceutical companies.
Introduction
If you go in for a private ADHD diagnosis or take such a diagnosis online, you will be subject to biased and inaccurate information that pharmaceutical companies have crafted.
We have no financial conflicts or other connections to drug companies or medical establishments. We will use our independence to review some of the information from these websites.
Website Example #1: From Clinical Partners
The following article is from the website Clinical Partners.
Like all the websites we reviewed that off some type of ADHD diagnosis or ADHD private diagnosis, Clinical Partners does not explain that their primary business model is about promoting drugs for ADHD.
Website Example #2: From Psychiatry UK
This company is very proud of how many ADHD diagnoses it provides. These quotes are from their website.
Welcome to the Psychiatry-UK Adult ADHD service. We believe that we are now the biggest provider of adult ADHD diagnosiss in the UK.
They also provide a problematic explanation for how ADHD diagnosis has expanded from children to adults.
Normally associated with impulsive behaviour and that commonly perceived lack of control in children that has allowed some to dismiss the diagnosis as just bad behaviour and the result of poor parenting. The hyperactive behaviour tends to become more easily controlled as a child goes through adolescence – and to become a more generalised restlessness and or irritability. This is perhaps why there used to be a belief that ADHD was only found in children. In the last 20 years we have understood that this is not really true.
Entirely left out of this presentation is the influence of pharmaceutical companies in promoting adult ADHD to increase sales of their drugs, primarily amphetamines, and methylphenidate.
Psychiatry UK presents extremely speculative information about ADHD as if it is an established fact.
ADHD stands for Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder. It is a neuro-developmental condition, so it develops as your brain develops, in childhood. It is often associated with (co-morbid with, as doctors put it), other neurodevelopmental conditions such as dyspraxia, dyslexia, Tourette’s syndrome and what are generally called autistic spectrum disorders.
These co-morbidities can easily mask or counteract some of the more obvious symptoms of ADHD, and an experienced psychiatrist will be well aware of this.
As well as being a neuro-developmental condition, in adults, ADHD is also commonly linked or co-morbid with mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression, where the underlying ADHD has been masked for years by the associated problems that it has resulted in.
This presents ADHD as a hidden item that, as soon as it is uncovered (entirely leaving out the prescribed drugs and the implications), solves a person’s other problems. This way, ADHD is presented as a “master disorder.” This is highly appealing to people who have multiple problems. However, as I will cover, ADHD is diagnosed through a checklist — which was influenced by the pharmaceutical industry and is not scientific.