This article reminds me of a front page article in The Daily Telegraph a couple of years ago titled "Stop Drugging Our Children" which covered the ADHD drugging of our children. ADHD is one of the diseases voted into existence into the DSM by a show of hands. It does not have any medical or scientific basis whatsoever and there is no blood test, scan, Xray etc to validate it"s existence. It is most often treated with powerful psychotropic drugs which may have unpredictable horrific side effects including violence, suicidal behaviour and stroke ie Russian Rou;lette with the children who wholeheartedly trust us as parents to protect them. Young children go through different stages of emotioal and physical development. In their vulnerable state as they try to find their way in the world there behaviour maybe be normal or it may be influences by real medical or emotional cirmstances. Maybe your child is just crying out for a little bit more love and attention.

Thank you for you article Anthony. The screening of 3 year olds smells very much of more drugging of of our children and an excuse for Psychiatrists to add more made up diseases into the DSM. Shame on Psychiatry and hands off our children. This screening is like an insidious corrupt force permeating into our children's lives

I compeletely agree with the views expressed in this article. Children are our future and they MUST be protected from those who wish to over prescribe drugs, drugs. drugs!! There may a small percentage of mentally unbalanced children, however to then decide to screen and "diagnose" all children is a complete pendulum swing and shows an ability to differentiate, by appplying a broad "band aid" to a whole section of life! Leave our kids alone!

There's a huge percentage of academics who are more unbalanced than any other group in our society yet they pick on three year olds. Typical !

Dr Dillon makes sense -A significant number of ill folk and given psychiatric labels are suffering from a medical condition. Here’s a quote from the author of “A dose of sanity”, Dr Sidney Walker III:
"As a practicing psychiatrist and neurologist, I've successfully diagnosed and treated hundreds of patients whose emotional and behavioral symptoms were caused by tumors, infections, toxins, medication errors, genetic diseases, and other physical problems. Most of them came to me after being tagged with psychiatric labels - manic depression, anxiety disorder, attention deficit disorder - and being given powerful mind-altering drugs or referral for psychotherapy. By the time they called my office, many were desperate, some were suicidal, and few had been significantly helped."
e

I agree with Dr. Dillon. Every year there are more mental disorders, every year more medications prescribed, every year more is given to 'treat' mental disorders, and the mental health ambassadors and pharmaceutical companies continue to make more and more profit. And what is the result of all of this growing 'treatment' of 'mental disorders.' The result are easy to see - every year the crime rate increases, every year the suicide rate continues to increase, every year there are more acts of domestic violence, every year more people appear to be 'depressed' or 'bi-polar' and the list goes on! Why do the statistics continue to grow as we continue feeding the mental health sector with increasing resources and money. And the answer is - because it is a lie! There is no 'chemical imbalance', there is no 'mental disorder' there is no 'bi-polar' or 'mental disease.' So as long as we continue to label and treat normal human emotions as diseases and prescribe 'modification' drugs - our society as a whole will get worse and our level of morality will decline! Could it be that the 'treatment' is the cause of the problem in the first place? The day we realize behavioral drugs cause the very thing they are supposed to prevent will be the biggest step towards a better world in the past century! Keep up the good work Dr. Dillon - your supporters are many!

Oh no, it seems I’m in the minority here…

But I’m going to stick my neck out and say that from my perspective this article presents one singular quality: philistinism (though with apologies to Palestinians… I’m referring to the Westernised sense of the word, ie being satisfied in your ignorance!)

Essentially the author seems to be suggesting that where no concrete evidence of an illness is present/observable, then its existence is cast into doubt. He asks “at what point does behaviour become a mental illness?” as if the answer is somehow ephemeral.

However I would suggest that it’s pretty uncontroversial to make the claim that once a behaviour starts to negatively impact on a person’s ability to live a satisfactory life, and exceeds that person’s ability to bring under control, it becomes an illness. As long as a discernable pattern of a manifestation is there, what more do you need to designate it an illness? And if it is the case that a majority of health professionals develop a consensus that a particular set of phenomena constitutes an illness, what’s wrong with that? If these professionals are suitably qualified to analyse data and make conclusions through the application of accepted methodologies, then how is that any less valid than a conclusion made through the appeal to more concrete forms of evidence?

I agree that it is more difficult to talk about mental illness in children. However I would argue that it is likely that the difficulty lies not so much in conceptualising whether children can have mental illnesses as it does in them not having the vocabulary and insight into their own thinking states to be able to notice and explain that there is something wrong… and with my social worker hat on I’d say also that I believe there is something of a social prejudice against taking as valid the views and perspectives of children