No Child Left Different
edited by Sharna Olfman
Foreword by Mel Levine, M.D.
Dealing with child development, childhood disorders such as bipolar disorder and ADHD, medications, media’s role, other topics.
A monumental, anchoring work with two chapters written by Sharna Olfman, a Clincial Psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology in the Department of Humanities at Point Park University, Pittsburgh. She teaches child development and directs the annual Childhood and Society Symposium.
With the increasing diagnosis of such disorders as ADHD and bipolar disorder in children, has come a marked increase in the use of powerful psychotropic drugs being prescribed for preschoolers up until the teenage years. Are such diagnosis valid, or are there other explanations and reasons for children’s psychological problems?
Sharna Olfman develops this theme, with two opening chapters and nine other qualified writers who elaborate on various aspects of children’s mental health, medication, and other serious issues on the subject. Anyone in the field of mental health, special education or parents who are struggling with these issues with their own children, should read this book.
It points out not only the problems, but also gives ideas that can help to direct parents and children so as to avoid the pitfalls of the current mental health system, as well as to make practical adjustments in life in orders to overcome the severity of symptoms, or other adjustments. Such topics as the nature of children’s mental health, the community, pornography’s effect on mental health, a balanced look at the role of genetics, as well as a closer look at what is known as the “medical model” of mental health, and it’s shortcomings. Dangers of psychotropic drugs are discussed, as well as the effects of television, video games and movies, media violence, on mental health.
An article by Lawrence Diller, M.D., a behavioral-development pediatrician and family therapist, well known for his work in drugs for ADHD such as Ritalin, examines the issues involved on these subjects. Other articles are written by Michael Brody, a child and adult psychiatrist in private practice and professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland; Mary Burke, a child psychiatrist in private practice who teaches at the California Pacific Medical Center and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institution/University of California, San Francisco; Daniel Burston, Associate Professor of Psychology at Duquesne University Pittsburgh, Varda Burstyn, public policy consultant and cultural and political analyst; David Fenton a University professor and active environmentalist, Jane M. Healy, an educational psychologist with postdoctoral work in neuropsychology. Highly recommended!!
Please see: Association for Natural Psychology: http://www.winmentalhealth.com/id42.html
for more book reviews and information on natural ways to cope with mental health and children’s disorders.
John Samuels is an writer and educator in Newark, NJ and social science undergraduate at Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, NJ.