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A Physician Reflects on Children, Society, and Performance in a Pill
Bantam
May 1999
400 pages
ISBN: 0553379062
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Non-Fiction
In a book as provocative and newsworthy as Listening to
Prozac and Driven to Distraction, a physician speaks out on
America's epidemic level of diagnoses for attention deficit
disorder, and on the drug that has become almost a symbol
of our times: Ritalin. In 1997 alone, nearly five million people in the United
States were prescribed Ritalin--most of them young children
diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Use of this
drug, which is a stimulant related to amphetamine, has
increased by 700 percent since 1990. And this phenomenon
appears to be uniquely American: 90 percent of the world's
Ritalin is used here. Is this a cause for alarm--or simply
the case of an effective treatment meeting a newly
discovered need? Important medical advance--or drug of
abuse, as some critics claim? Lawrence Diller has written the definitive book about this
crucial debate--evenhanded, wide-ranging, and intimate in
its knowledge of families, schools, and the pressures of
our speeded-up society. As a pediatrician and family
therapist, he has evaluated hundreds of children,
adolescents, and adults for ADD, and he offers crucial
information and treatment options for anyone struggling
with this problem. Running on Ritalin also throws a spotlight on some of our
most fundamental values and goals. What does Ritalin say
about the old conundrums of nature vs. nurture, free will
vs. responsibility? Is ADD a disability that entitles us
to special treatment? If our best is not good enough, can
we find motivation and success in a pill? Is there still a
place for childhood in the performance-driven America of
the late nineties?
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