Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / The Hidden Cost of Labels and What Kids Really Need Instead [with Sami Timimi]

Transcript

The Hidden Cost of Labels and What Kids Really Need Instead [with Sami Timimi] · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: My book of the Year this year is called Searching
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: for Normal. It's by Sammy to Mimy. He works in
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the UK as a child and adolescent psychiatrist and psychotherapist,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and it's taken me a couple of months to get
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: through this one. There's some pretty heavy concepts. At times,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: it feels like you're reading more of an academic book
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: than a a popular trade book that you buy on
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the shelves, and yet the conversation about mental health, the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: conversation about diagnoses, about neurodiversity, trauma, and so much more.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It may be one of the most important books that
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: is on bookshelves at the moment. So today a conversation
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: with an author that I have been so excited to
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: talk with, Sammy to Mimy. That's coming up in just
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: a sec on the Happy Families podcast. Stay with us, gooday,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Welcome for the Happy Families podcast. Real Parenting Solutions every
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: single day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast, Dr Sammy
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: to Mimmy's new book is called Searching for Normal. It's
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: a new approach to understanding mental health, distress and neurodiversity,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and it asks a question that every parent is quietly
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: wondering have we started treating normal childhood struggles as medical problems?
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Has psychology become too medicalized? After thirty five years in
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: child and adolescent psychiatry, Doctor to Mimmy has seen how
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: quick diagnoses like ADHD in autism and anxiety can sometimes
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: overshadow what kids really need, which is understanding and connection
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: and support. He helps parents to tell the difference between
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: genuine mental illness and the very real pressures of growing
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: up in today's world. In the book, he says, your
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: child isn't broken or abnormal. Psychiatric labels are cultural inventions,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: not biological destiny. When distress is medicalized, it steals our hope.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: But if we can find another story, we can break
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the cycle that has trapped too many for too long.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Doctor to Mimy, so good of you to join me
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: on the Happy Family's podcasts.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm delighted to
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: be here.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: So as I said in the intro, I was reading
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: your book, I had a few pages to go, and
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: then your publicist got in touch and said, would you
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: like to interview this man on your podcast? And I
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: just thought, oh my goodness, what a great opportunity. How
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: can I say no, I've loved the book. In the book,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: you argue that much of what we label as a
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: disorder may actually be an understandable human response to difficult circumstances,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: and immediately, in the context of ADHD and depression and anxiety,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I thought, this is the kind of thing that is provocative,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: it's volatile, It's the kind of thing that a lot
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of parents are going to take potentially offense at, because well,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: we love our labels, and in the current psychological state
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: that we're in, there seem to be more and more
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: people who are saying, my child is definitely not right.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: So I'd love for you to talk a bit about
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: how parents can tell the difference between ordinary distress or
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: ordinary hyperactivity and impulsivity, the typical ways that you want
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and behave, versus a real clinical concern that needs extra help.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: One of the things that I was trying to get
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: across in my recent book Searching for Normal, is one
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: of the difficulties of trying to figure this stuff out
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: is that we don't really have an understanding of what
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: we mean by things like normal. So I know the
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: title of the book is searching for Normal, but the
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: idea of normal assumes that we have an understanding of
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: what we mean by normal?
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Is there a problem with that definition normal? Like from
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: a clinical or mental health sense? What can be problematic
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: with definitions like normal?
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: The problem is all the definitions that we use in
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: mental health are subjective and therefore their concepts that are
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: and be expanded in all sorts of different directions, because
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: we don't have what you would call empirical anchors, something
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: definite in the physical world that can make you differentiate
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: between something that's a problem in the hardwiring, if you like,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: of the brain or the body, from things that aren't.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Can you got a little deeper on that?
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: The problem then becomes because our definitions are all subjective,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: we literally don't know what we're talking about when it
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: comes to mental health, and it becomes in the eye
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: of the beholder. And the thing that we all have
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: in common is that when we have various issues, various
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: problems that we're trying to understand, is that we are
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: meaning making creatures. And the frameworks that we use to
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: make sense of these presentations of things that worry us,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: of things that can us are very powerful in terms
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: of how we then understand and how we then react,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and how we then imagine what the type of problem
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: that the person is experiencing is all about. The thing is,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: you can't see a thought under the microscope. So one
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: of the difficulties for all parents, and one of the
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: things that I say to parents when I meet with
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: them is that one of the things that I can't
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: do for you is deal with guilt, because all good
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: parents feel guilty most of the time. That's just something
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: that we have to accept because we love our children
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: and we're surrounded by these narratives that are in our
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: society at the moment that make us imagine that there
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: are all these disorders and problems and that you should
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: should identify them early and that you should intervene early.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: So you can't blame parents who are wanting to go
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: down these pathways.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Ah, totally right. But what are some of the problems
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: or issues that can arise if parents do choose to
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: go down the pathway of early identification and intervention.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: The problem is, if you go down these pathways, there
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: is a danger that your children are going to be
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: exposed to the issues of labeling. And sociologists have known
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: about the problems with labeling and the power of labeling,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: and then you're exposing your child to the potential harms
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: that can come from them internalizing an idea, and you,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: as a parent, and the teachers and all the other
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: people who they're going to come into contact with internalizing
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: this idea that there's something wrong, that there's something broken,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: that there's something about them that means that they're unable
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: to function in society as it's made at the moment.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: So rather than being able to help parents tell the
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: difference between a clinical problem and a non clinical problem,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: which I think is, you know, that depends on each
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: person's situation and what's going on in that family, in
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: that young person, in their peer group, in their school,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: and so on. What I would give some pointers to
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: are a few things that I think would be helpful
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: for parents to keep in mind in helping them negotiate
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: this difficult area because we're so surrounded by this narrative
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: that there's all these vulnerabilities and potential disorders lurking in
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: the background. So my first tip would be, don't try
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: too hard, because we live in a society that puts
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: pressure on us and our children to perform, and the
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: problem is we can then see our children and or
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: ourselves as primarily vulnerable, and then we get drawn into
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: noticing all sorts of ways in which their mental or
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: behavioral health could go wrong, and we could then be
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: launched into as seeming never ending search for the right
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: diagnosis or the right treatment, and in doing that we
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: risk collecting labels and the various accompanying interventions. So that's
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: one thing I would say, Please don't try too hard.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: I think when we're very worried about our children, when
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: we're driven to guilt, there is the temptation to intervene unnecessarily.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: What's the second one.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: The second thing I would suggest to parents is don't
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: fear emotions. When we put emotions in the class of
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: problems that can only be solved by special expertise, like
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: a specific therapy or worse, as I said, psychiatric medication,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: what we risk in doing that is losing agency and
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: alienating ourselves from parts of ourselves that are to be
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: experienced rather than feared. Our job as parents, if we're
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: going to allow our children to grow and develop psychologically,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: is to understand that we can't prevent all suffering disappointments,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: and our job instead is to be there when our
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: children have these difficulties in their life, when they're going
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: through emotional upheaval and emotional distress, is to be there,
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: to be patient, allow this to happen, and help them
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: on their way.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: You've mentioned the first two things, don't try too hard
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and don't fear emotions. Tell us the third idea.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: The third thing that I would say is see nurturing
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: relationships as a greater priority than controlling behavior, because when
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: we're distressed by behavior of our children, we often have
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: we can get through to them so that they change
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: in a way that would stop them doing the sorts
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: of behaviors that we're considering, things that we're worried or
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: frustrated about or irritated by. Unfortunately, when our attempts to
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: kind of control behavior can accidentally damage a relationship. So
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: for me, one of the things that I've put as
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: a priority in my work with young people and families
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: where there's a lot of worry or where there's a
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: lot of worry about behavior and behavior that is causing
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: distress or frustration or irritation to the parents, is to
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: focus on emotional flow, So on the emotional dynamic between
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: the young person and their parents or their family more widely.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got don't try too hard, don't fear emotions,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: prioritize nurturing the relationship versus controlling the behavior. I love
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: this one. It's something that I still struggle with with
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: my own kids, So I love this one. Tell us
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: your fourth and final one.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: The final one that I would put in there is
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: beware of what I call concept creep. So concept creep
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: is something that's been happening quite a lot in our
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: culture recently, where concepts that were originally developed in clinical world,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: whether it's in psychiatry or psychotherapy, have sort of leaked
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: out into our culture. My kids, when they were growing
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: up they're now adults, started talking about some years ago
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: feeling depressed, not feeling miserable, not feeling frustrated, but feeling
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: So that was I think one of the first examples
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: of words that came from a clinical world and crept
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: into the everyday life. But we've got all sorts of
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: concepts that have now crept in from emotional regulation, emotional intelligence, meltdown,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: so children now have meltdowns, they don't have tantrums. So
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: these kind of more ordinary bits of language and the
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: reason why I think you should be careful of starting
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: to think in those terms is that they draw you
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: towards an idea that what your kid is experiencing is
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: outside of the realm of the ordinary, side, of the
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: realm of what we consider to be the social world
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: of expectations, and in the realm of a potential problem.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Today and the Happy Families Podcast, we're talking to doctor
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Sammy Timimi, who has over three decades experience working with
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: children and families as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and it's
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the author of the new book Searching for Normal. After
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the break, we'll talk neurodiversity and the increase in ADHD
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and autism diagnoses. Stay with us. This is the Happy
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Families Podcast Today talking with doctor Sammy to Mimi, author
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: of Searching for Normal, which I reckon is one of
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the most important books at the moment that covers issues
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: such as mental health, trauma and neurodiversity, ADHD and autism diagnoses,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and just the idea of neudiversity. There's been an extraordinary
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: increase in exposure to a conversation about that. I would
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: say probably over the last let's say ten to twelve years.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: What do you think is driving the surge and what
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: should parents do about it?
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: There are many factors that would be driving this, and
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: it is quite an extraordinary expansion. What has happened over
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: the years is what I call a mutation of constructs.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: And this comes back to what I was saying earlier
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: that because the definitions are subject because they refer to
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: behaviors rather than you know, you don't get a blood
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: test for ADHD and get a brain scan. What you
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: do is you have a questionnaire. Or in terms of
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: autism diagnosis, there's also some observational tools, and I've done
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: all the training in all of these, and I'll be
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: quite honest with you, they're no better than pop psychology
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: quizes that you might find on even the ones that
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: appear to be more sophisticated, they're just more sophisticated versions
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: of the same thing. They don't have any empirical anchors.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: And what that means is that they can be expanded.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: And they've become expanded in two directions, So they can
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: become expanded horizontally by including lesser degrees of behavior presentations,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: so lesser behaviors can be included, or lesser severe behaviors
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: can be included, and then they can be expanded vertically,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: which means that new populations that previously didn't have the
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: likelihood of these diagnoses enter into the realm of diagnosis.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Sammie, can you give us some ideas, some examples in
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: terms of ADHD and autism.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: With ADHD and you can see a very similar pattern
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: with autism that happened a few years later. It starts
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: out as in my clinical lifetime, I trained in child
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: psychiatry back in the mid nineties, and we didn't diagnose
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: anybody with ADHD. There was something called hyperkinetic disorder which
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: was focused on levels of behavior, so activity levels, and
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: this was a very rare disorder. So in my first
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: nine months of child Psychiasha, I didn't see anybody who
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: was diagnosed with this condition. And it was also at
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: that time considered that if you had signific learning difficulties,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: that would automatically exclude you from such a diagnosis, because
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: it was considered that learning difficulties by itself would be
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: a reasonable explanation for why you might be struggling with
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: your behavior. Then the concept of ADHD got imported from
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: the US and it starts out with a prevalence rate
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: of about zero point five percent of children. Over the years,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: this expands and eventually it becomes about three percent of children.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: At this point it still thought of as what we
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: call a developmental disorder, which means that the expectation was
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: as children grow up, most of them would grow out
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: of it. However, by the early two thousands in this country,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: the concept of adult ADHD was beginning to creep in.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: So this is your example of beginning to vertically expand.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: So the idea that it was a lifelong disorder and
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: something that was not likely to recover from was happening.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And now the concentration was also on ideas of attention,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: so attention comes more into the picture levels of attention.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: So this is a new behavior being brought in. And
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: then in the last five to ten years, but particularly
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: in the last five years, the concept of masking allows
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: it to go even further. So the concept of masking
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: is you actually have the symptoms, but you should don't
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: show them.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Because you're keeping them hidden and chilled them inside until
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: your home and it's safe to let alone exactly.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: And so this allows a greater degree of women to
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: come into the diagnostic category women and girls. So by now,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: the it's expanded to you know, five percent in some countries,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: ten percent of the population and rising, and in doing
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: that it also starts to become incorporated into identity politics.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: So as it expands, you also got a group of
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: people who understandably rejected some of the medicalization of this,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: but instead still kept the whole idea that there's something
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: neurological going on. So that's where the neurodiversity comes in,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: which I think is a Bonker's concept. I'll be perfectly
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: frank with you, because we're all neurodiverse, but this idea
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: that we can separate a group who are neurodiverse, who
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: are unable, if you like, who have a problem functioning
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: in society as it's made at the moment, and a
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: group who are neurotypical in which society is made for us. Well,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: all of us are struggling with the way society is.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: So if you look at the big picture, what are
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the potential drivers of this expansion.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: They are, to my mind, partly a crisis of economy,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: So of people are feeling insecure, pessimistic about the future,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: so there's a greater degree of distress. This level of
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: distress level of insecurity that people have becomes a potential
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: something to exploit for profit.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a gold mind for big pharmaceuticals.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And it's been a gold mine. And this is why
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: I call what's happened the mental health industrial complex, because
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: in the last few years there's been a rapid expansion
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: of expensive assessments, of books, of podcasts, of magazines, of
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: self help manuals, of online programs. Not just the pharmaceuticals,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: but there's a whole raft of things. I really feel
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: the current generation of young people growing up I have
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: been the most pathologized generation that there has been, and
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: that really worries me because I think we've been setting
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: young people up and there's so much evidence now to
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: suggest that that's what's happening. We're setting young people up
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: to be disempowered and sometimes to be unnecessarily disabled.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: It's a solid take, it's a provocative take. It's the
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: kind of take that gets people to sit up and
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: pay attention, and I'm sure that there's going to be
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of people that have a lot to say
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: about it. Personally, I think the book is needed. I
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: think it's a vital insight into where we are from
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: a mental health perspective in the current climate, and a
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: great call to action in terms of how we can
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: make some changes. Sammy, I could talk to you all day,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I reckon if you and I could sit down over
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: a coffee table with a couple of nice drinks and
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: some snacks, you and I could probably talk for two
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: weeks and solve all the problems of the world. It
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: would be so much fun. But for now we're going
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: to have to leave it there, simply because time gets
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the better of us. Thank you so much for being
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: generous with your time and having a chat with us
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: about your new books, Searching for Normal.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for inviting me.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: The book Searching for Normal is available right now everywhere
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: that you buy your books. One of my favorite books
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: of the year. There's no way for me to say
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: it without being any more excited about it than that
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I just loved the book. Doctor Sammy to Mimmy, practicing
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: consultant child an adolescent psychiatrist and psychotherapist, working previously with the
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: NHS in the UK. He's written forty book chapters, mainly
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: in academic books, although his most recent one, before Searching
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: for Normal, was called Insane Medicine. How the mental health
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: industry creates damaging treatment traps and how you can escape them.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Check out Searching for Normal and new approach to understanding
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: mental health, distress and neurodiversity wherever you buy your books.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Mimhammonds provides research admin and a whole lot
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: of other support and if you'd like morofo to make
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: your family happier, please visit us at happyfamilies dot com
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: dot a u