"The ADHD Myth"

[Felis Catus]

How does constant mental stimulation, zero autonomy and a demand constant performance affect the growth of child's brain? Does the brain literally grow used to operating in a certain mode, so much that when the stimulation is abset, no other person is there to set goals, and there's nothing to do the brain suddenly struggles?

I see what you mean and I'm not going to contradict you. I would like to add that going back in the past, not that long ago, our ancestors had jobs as children and were having their own children in teenage years. Some were slaves. That couldn't have been nice and easy for their brains either.

 

[Creekside]

So it looks as if ADHD is a real biomedical phenomenon but may require careful diagnosis - familiar?

An important difference from ME is that ADHD has (please correct me if I'm wrong) somewhat reliable treatments. That affects the likelihood of getting a diagnosis (especially if doctors get bonuses for getting patients hooked on profitable drugs). Even without a bonus, it's a diagnosis that gets a "problem solved" result, which is more desirable than having to tell the patient: "Sorry, can't help you."

 

[Creekside]

Thus the new "PEM must be delayed" dictum may be fair enough for clear blue water between ME and other fatiguing conditions for study but it is not fair imo to deny the term to those whose PEM is more immediate

I hadn't heard of that change. My physically-induced PEM had a very reliable 24 hr delay, but my cognitively-induced PEM had a much shorter (less than an hour) and more variable delay. I don't consider any of the ME criteria to be absolute truth, but rather attempts at making a tool that's usable for a specific purpose ... and it's nowhere near perfection.

 

[Lidia Thompson]

Global ADHD Network Statement on Channel 4's "The Great ADHD Myth?" Documentary

Global ADHD Network Statement on Channel 4's "The Great ADHD Myth?" Documentary

Read the Global ADHD Network's official response to Channel 4's "The Great ADHD Myth?" documentary, backed by scientific evidence and clinical consensus.

www.globaladhdnetwork.com

This was issued on August 4th, 2026 BEFORE the program was broadcast.
It looks like they went ahead and broadcast the program anyway.

Where's the accountability for the potential harm this program may cause?

 

[MrMagoo]

I'm not really convinced. Sounds like a weak generic "modern life is to blame for everything" argument.

By everything I've heard from my parents and grandparents, I'd say teachers used to be stricter. My gut feeling is that older generations had to sit more still and be more focused in school. There's a lot of teaching through games and play and all sorts of interactive ways, which are more chilled than how it used to be in the past.

Wouldn't there be documented increased numbers of people with ADHD-like traits and behaviours in the generations that grew up during wars, if reduction in outdoor activity was a problem?

I'm not sure about mobile phones either. There are many people seeking ADHD diagnosis who've had problems their whole life but got their first mobile phone when they were adults. I got my first mobile phone when I was a teenager but I had my obsessions, i.e. activities I was really into, which kept me in the bedroom before the phones and remained obsessed despite having a phone (I don't have ADHD, just talking about my experiences and observations). I appreciate the mobile phone world is very different now as well as many other things but it's not that our childhoods were ideal before them. Trends and stupid ideas spread from person to person but they existed. Not everyone played super smart games in optimal amounts to facilitate their development and read books. I don't know... Somehow I don't find it convincing enough.

When I was a child we were always being warned about getting “square eyes” from too much tv. Whatever happened to that? Maybe it was just virtue signalling rather than a genuine concern about screen use.

 

[tornandfrayed]

I didn't watch the programme but I'll guess it was the usual mix of some people who understand the issue alternated for "balance" with people who don't understand it but are keen to sound off about their own pet ththeories.

It wasn't. It was completely one-sided with no opposing voices and no nuance.

 

[Trish]

Channel 4 has a bit of a history of giving a platform to individuals making unevidenced claims as if they were true - as do much of the media.

 

[Eleanor]

The Great ADHD Myth? Suggesting that ADHD is a myth is pseudoscientific and dangerous | New Scientist

ADHD is a real condition that can have serious consequences if undiagnosed. An ill-informed documentary that suggests it is a modern, social construct could cause harm, says Caroline Williams

www.newscientist.com

(go into reader mode on your browser to bypass the signup requirement)

“My interview was hours long and they cherry-picked the bits that suited their push for presenting ADHD as a myth,” Rubia [neuroscientist Katya Rubia at King’s College London] told New Scientist. “Biased programs like this one that push their view of ADHD as a mythical entity are irresponsible and will have detrimental effects.”

 

[Sean]

Channel 4 has a bit of a history of giving a platform to individuals making unevidenced claims as if they were true - as do much of the media.

Was it Ch 4 who did two hit jobs some years back on dyslexia, and climate change?

 

[NelliePledge]

Comment in the guardian
there is nothing scientific about the great adhd documentary. Gina Rippon Prof of Cognitive Neuroimaging

There is nothing scientific about The Great ADHD Myth? ‘documentary’ | Gina Rippon

Channel 4’s programme wastes a chance to ask important questions about how ADHD is diagnosed and treated, instead indulging in unscientific methods and conspiracy theories, says author Gina Rippon

www.theguardian.com

 

[PageofME]

The documentary is on Youtube now:

 

[JellyBabyKid]

One of the worst things about developing ME/CFS for me is that it's taken away some of the benefits of autism that made me happiest, the capacity for deep sustained focus and encyclopaedic fact-knowledge (and the kinds of work which that enabled me to do).

Oh, same!

Late diagnosed ADHD-er here, and still waiting for an autism assessment (coming up to the third anniversary of being put on the list), as my symptoms were flagged during the pre screening process for ADHD.

The relief is immense; I'm not a failure of a human being; I have executive function and emotional regulation challenges, which have made my life so much harder than it needs to have been, and potentially contributed to me getting so sick, and triggering ME. Knowledge is power, and I can learn ways to work with my brain instead of trying to make it work like everybody else's and feeling like a failure when I can't.

It also makes an awful lot more sense of my parents, and helps me to be patient with their challenges as they get older, as I see my symptoms in them as well, as there is a strong heritability component to neurodivergence.

And yes, one of the very worst things about getting ME/CFS is losing my ability to read and study at depth for sustained periods. It is truly distressing.

I find this whole public debate about overdiagnosis infuriating, when one of the reasons for increase in diagnosis is they've suddenly realized that women can also be neurodivergent, so of course overdiagnosis is the problem, and not that the medical community completely missed it in an entire section of the population.

Edit to add: missing word s

 

[V.R.T.]

Knowledge is power, and I can learn ways to work with my brain instead of trying to make it work like everybody else's and feeling like a failure when I can't.

This is exactly what O' Sullivan and the rest of the 'overdiagnosis' gang don't seem to understand.

I spent my entire life until age 27 thinking there was something deeply, fundamentally wrong with me. Which was reinforced by how others treated me for not being able to be like everyone else. Being diagnosed started me on the path to understanding myself. And unfortunately was only just learning how to work with myself rather than against myself when my MECFS got worse.

The absolute misery that is trying to work against your brain by trying to achieve things in the way 'neurotypical' people do is very hard to convey to anyone who hasn't experienced it.

 

[V.R.T.]

And yes, one of the very worst things about getting ME/CFS is losing my ability to read and study at depth for sustained periods. It is truly distressing.

Very much agree with this. I thought I'd always have the ability to read and learn new things.

Now I can't follow any interest to the depth I want, be that the science here, ecology stuff, how guitar pedals work, houseboats, whatever. I don't have the capacity to really learn stuff and I don't retain a lot of the stuff I do learn.

And I can only read certain types of books in small bursts, mostly on kindle. Audiobooks are great but they're not the same. And I need to be doing something at the same time to fully concentrate on audiobooks. Books were my life, and now when I see a book out by a favourite author of more difficult fiction or a non fiction book that interests me I often think 'I won't manage that'.

To say nothing of the fact I haven't finished writing a short story since 2020.

 

[JellyBabyKid]

Books were my life

I felt that, viscerally, as I am an always have been just the same.

It is impossible to convey to anybody that doesn't get it exactly what the impact of that loss is.

 

[rvallee]

This is exactly what O' Sullivan and the rest of the 'overdiagnosis' gang don't seem to understand.

I think it's worse and they do understand it, it's just that they're wrong, that they align with the facts, but in defiant opposition of what they mean, parallel, but completely backwards. This is a core feature of modern psychosomatic ideology, they even borrow a lot of the language we use for this reason. The speak of giving patients the power of knowledge, of being able to do something with that knowledge, all the time. They also speak a lot about hope, which we pin on science, something they criticize us for, absurdly insane as it is.

Just like they make the patient community being silenced, which they do against us, and stigmatized, while being the main source of both. They understand those things, but they use them as weapons because they have beliefs and opinions that reject reality. Which is something they also accuse us of, having the privilege of abusing power that way.

I see them the same way as religious fanatics. They are smart enough to understand those things, and to use them in the pursuit of their goals. It normally shouldn't work, but the religion they force onto us happens to be their divine superiority, and that's just too appealing an excuse in a context of disastrous failure. It says, to themselves: you are not failing them, they are failing themselves, you are doing great, you are capable, you are perfect and all-knowing.

 

[rvallee]

Opinion piece arguing against the validity of ADHD: https://www.bmj.com/content/394/bmj-2026-100637/rr-3.

Overall familiar rhetoric and framing, but this is happening despite it being able to find loads of people saying their lives were transformed for the better because they found a drug that works for them.

Seeing this, we should definitely not expect denial to shift much even if a drug were found to treat ME/CFS. The influence of psychology in medicine is such a very strong net negative. Humans do not seem able to handle dealing with other humans where there is the slightest conflict with their expectations. Oh, the irony, that much of this is about expectations.

 

[V.R.T.]

Humans do not seem able to handle dealing with other humans where there is the slightest conflict with their expectations.

Yes this seems to be a strong motivator for claiming conditions are fake or people are malingering.

 

[Andy]

Opinion: The Great ADHD Myth documentary is misleading and misinformed

• Jessica Eccles1, associate professor,
• Heidi Phillips2, neurodevelopmental specialist GP, chair, and founder,
• Anita Thapar3, honorary professor

In the Channel 4 documentary The Great ADHD Myth broadcast on 18 August 2026, psychiatrist and journalist Max Pemberton questioned whether attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a “genuine neurodevelopmental disorder, or a social construct.”1 The documentary has contributed misinformation and confusion to the already fraught discourse around ADHD.

Full text

 

[SNT Gatchaman]

Final paragraph from the above BMJ piece —

We echo the concerns raised by the Royal College of General Practitioners and Royal College of Psychiatrists, about one sided and sensationalised reporting of ADHD and its negative effect on people with ADHD who are already stigmatised or disbelieved. Medical misinformation has consequences: it creates confusion for non-specialist clinicians and could therefore be detrimental to clinical care, timely diagnosis, and access to appropriate support for people with ADHD.