Note: I’ve lectured on this subject for over 10 years. This will be the first time I’ve placed my collective thoughts into print. I’ll present the topic as a series of essays.
Sigmund Freud vs. Dennis the Menace
As I mentioned previously, many factors were involved in the cultural shift that altered our perception about children like Dennis the Menace. The cultural shift has made the United States the leading consumer of Ritalin. As a matter of fact, according to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the US now consumes about 90% of the world’s Ritalin supply!
The cultural shift was gradual, but what made us change perception to the point where we consider children like Dennis to have a neurological disorder? To put it plainly, we now consider Dennis to have a problem with his brain. Who would have thought that possible? Well, psychiatrists, actually.
Sigmund Freud, famed Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who co-founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology was perhaps best known for the theory of the unconscious mind. He proposed that the mind was multi-layered and that these layers could cause physical problems. The notion that the mind possessed a subconscious element was not new. Psychologist William James and colleagues had written about it years before, but it was Freud who advanced the concept by proposing that the subconscious could be systematically studied through psychoanalysis.
For years prior to Freud’s contributions, especially during the 19th century, French sociologist, Auguste Comte’s positivism was favored. Positivists believed that one could come to true understanding of oneself through scientific study and discipline. In other words, one could control oneself and one’s environment through free-will. Freud countered that free will was not possible because we have a subconscious of which we are totally unaware and often act for reasons that are unrelated to our conscious thoughts. These “repressed” thoughts were often directed toward one’s parents; however, individuals could repress different things as well.
Freud’s theory, although greatly altered one way or another, permeated medical practice as it was taught at many medical schools. Universities began to teach it, and it eventually took hold in public education by the 1950s. Even before that time, in mid 1940s, Dr. Benjamin Spock had devised a child rearing philosophy based more on Freud’s theory than on the popular behaviorist model of the time. Spock emphasized the need for parents to understand and treat each child as an individual and to understand their particular needs. Detractors generally cited Spock’s work as “overly permissive” and government spokes people cited him for creating much of the turmoil of the 1960s. But that’s an entire blog unto itself. Point of fact is that as a culture, we understood, disciplined, and dealt with children based on nurturing. If a child had a problem, it was caused by his upbringing. Furthermore, it was thought that the problem could be corrected by nurturing the child and changing the child’s environment, through understanding the child’s needs.
This changed radically in 1980 with the release of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual III (DSM III).
The other articles in the series “The Evolution of ADHD, Education, and Drugs in America” can be found below.
