Nowadays, even now that I’m typing and writing this short article, everyone is excessively bombarded by words like “neurodiversity”, “too much labelling”, “social control by medicine”, or even “giving children cocaine”, which by the way, last one is not so much new at all.
But, whether you hear any of these on a talk show from a professional or read them online, I believe they are all waste of time, especially for the ones that truly need help.
Now the main question would be: what exactly is going on here? I mean that when most people ask about mental disorders like ADHD (the most controversial one), depression or OCD, the truth slips away from everybody’s hands like a little goldfish.
Of course, you may now say this goes for all other mental disorders. Still, I would argue with you because many disorders are proven to be at least 90% neurological or neurological/psychiatric disorders, yet not these ones.
Although a disorder like ADHD has been heavily researched, and there is still ongoing research on it, the potential for these time-consuming meaningless topics and conversations still exists; let me know what I think about it.
As an early career scholar, I believe that is partially a manifestation of the eternal challenge and sometimes war between scholars. These academics specialise in psychiatry or psychology, and even other experts that are somehow active in this field publish articles and materials on it.
In this way, a vast published literature goes out to the public and brings tension alongside it. Experts or anyone related to this stuff starts talk shows or YouTube discussions, and after a short time, they start dissing each other.
One calls the other guy a conspiracy theorist, and the other expert, psychologist, or commentator regards him as a fake or egoist scholar that is a fraud. But the question is, what happens to the community of people who need help? Well, they get hurt. And I’ll explain my suggestive solution very soon but let’s discuss the second part too.
The second part of the problem relates to the fact that a vast literature of other research about conditions is left to rot, especially the interdisciplinary research on a situation like ADHD. If one looks deeply and considers all aspects of, for example, “diet effects on ADHD”, one may find some articles and essays on it.
Still, they are primarily inconclusive or hard to find or found in directories that cannot be wholly trusted because some of those directories are not famous.
Now I believe there are solutions to this problem. The first part that I explained would be that organisations and mainly institutions which are accredited and regarded as the best in these fields, such as APA (American Psychological Association), start to get in touch more closely with the majority of the people and course, those that are affected by mental disorders or their close relatives are and also express their conclusions on these topics completely with absolute honesty.
People would always rather hear and follow the official institution’s guidelines and, more importantly, when entrapped between these forms. This way, no matter, if a scientific discovery is genuine or a hoax or a new drug is beneficial for someone with depression, people know and can decide what to do exactly.
The second solution for the second significant problem, I believe, is the empowerment of open-access directories happening worldwide. Still, it should start getting in a rush and translating different articles on mental health issues into more languages.
Yes, you heard correctly. Translation. Imagine you access a brilliant article without any payment and even very fast and easily, but It is only in German or English. What about Korean or Arabic, or any other language?
By translating high-quality articles, more people can access a wider area that could benefit them much easier and faster.
I sincerely believe that these measurements can help people to decide what is best for them without paying high prices or losing a lot of valuable time; however, this chaotic atmosphere that is affecting psychology and its issues like the one I mentioned are truly complex in nature and let’s be realistic: this is not going to happen very soon, but we should try.
Kian Zehtabian is a psychology graduate mental health advocate.
