A-socio-logy of psychiatric disorder. A study of controversies surrounding etiology, diagnosis and therapy of ADHD

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the controversies surrounding ADHD and the process whereby this psychiatric unit was formed and constituted as a social and scientific fact. We focus mainly on the arguments around ADHD in the United States – this is dictated by significant differences between the ways to define and treat this disorder between various countries (Bonati 2006; Cohen 2006: 14). The above mentioned controversies make us conscious of the fact that despite what a considerable number of psychiatrists, scientists and other “spokespeople” for the entity that is ADHD claim, the dominating approach to this disorder has not been based on self-evident, irrefutable scientific findings. What is more important, however, is that the quarrelling actors reveal the circumstances and the way in which the definition, as well as the methods of researching and treating ADHD were formed.

Keywords

• ADHD
• analysis of the controversy
• the black boxes
• DSM
• medicalization
• psychiatry
• actor-network theory