Thomas Szasz, M.D., is professor of psychiatry emeritus at SUNY Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He is the author of Fatal Freedom.

He has also written the book: The Manufacture of Madness.

"Long ago I became persuaded that it is not possible to understand modern psychiatric practices unless they are seen as manifestations of a popular madness; and that it is not possible to perceive them in such a light without being familiar with the history of psychiatry, which furnishes ample evidence to compromise its moral and scientific pretensions."

and

"As recently as 1938, Karl Menninger—the undisputed dean of American psychiatry in mid-century—declared: “In the unconscious mind, it [masturbation] always represents an aggression against someone.” (Emphasis added.)

None of psychiatry’s classic mistakes—from masturbatory insanity and its cures, to the disease of homosexuality and its compulsory treatment with “aversion therapy,” and to the attribution of the cause of schizophrenia to reverberating circuits in the frontal lobes and its cure with lobotomy (rewarded with a Nobel Prize in Medicine)—are “innocent” errors. Invariably, the false belief and the medical interventions it appears to justify serves the needs of the believers, especially the relatives of “patients” who seek control over the misbehavior of their “loved ones,” and the physicians who gain prestige and power by “diagnosing” and “treating” misbehavior as if it were disease.

We fool ourselves if we believe that psychiatry’s current popular delusions—such as the chemical causes and cures of depression, schizophrenia, suicide, and so forth—do not fit the same mold."

http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=4626

Nan

Hi Nan

I think in my case I just trawl for any information I can find then evaluate that to further my understanding rather than use it to make a diagnosis. (also the fact that I'm not qualified to do so) Some of the information is irrelevant to my situation and some describes the circumstances perfectly. If we were to ask for an assessment for R then we would have to provide indications of why we think it necessary. Unfortunately here in the UK no-one will diagnose a child unless it is a medical condition. The only other hope we have is if he is caught by the police for an offence then the authorities will have to take notice.

This is why the forum is so useful so we can share experiences and knowledge but we do all seem to be saying the same things whether it is about a child or an adult.

Jan

Just found another interesting web site.

The author seems to be using the traits evident in RAD and and translating the condition as psychopath. It looks as though others have already made this connection.

http://www.syntheory.com/psychopathy/psycho.html

Jan

**edited to make link clickable, be back in a bit to read and comment, Di

Thanks for the link, Jan, the site is very interesting.

This is meant for discussion and NOT diagnosis but I have been wondering about when we develop our conscience.

DSM-IV: Reactive Attachment Disorder

The American Psychiatric Association


Excerpt:
The child who truly acts without a conscience is likely to be suffering from RAD - Reactive Attachment Disorder.
continues...http://www.come-over.to/FAS/conscience.htm


Excerpt:
You don’t have to teach your child to walk – he’ll figure that out on his own. But left to his own devices, he won’t develop a conscience. For this, parents need to intercede. A conscience is our internal moral compass, a guide within us that helps us distinguish right from wrong. We begin to see an emerging conscience in children at around five or six years of age, but the groundwork for its development starts long before that.

Developing a Conscience

Sorry I'm not up on the current DSM, but RAD sounds interesting. I put together my own experience with book information in order to come up with that page you refer to. Other people are quite an inspiration for me, especially when they don't mind talking about their psychopath experiences.

By the way, this is my first post and I'm glad to be here!

Ken ... syntheory.com

Hi Ken

I found your article very interesting as it seems to confirm what I have been researching about RAD. You may, by now, be more familiar with RAD and these conditions do appear to be the same. I would like to add that I also believe some children are born that way and others go the nurture route.
I would like to see any other info you have posted on the forum.
I am prepared to discuss my experiences quite openly as that is the only way the problem will get recognition and attention.

Jan

Hi

I dom't know whether any of the members have seem the following before. It is from a RAD presntation but not sure who presented it.

http://members.tripod.com/~radclass/
All to often these individuals grow up untreated and become sociopaths without conscience and without concern for anyone but themselves. This condition was made popular by the recent academy award winning movie "Good Will Hunting." But unlike the movie, the hero, or heroine rarely drives off into the sunset to have a happy ever after life. More realistically, parental dreams are lost, and they grow up uncaring and without social conscience

**edited to make link clickable, Di

My opinion is that, assuming they while lacking in conscience, intellectually know right from wrong; RAD and Psychopathy are one and the same.

RAD simply is what you call it when he's a kid... once he's 18, he's a psychopath.

Freud said that the conscience is the superego and is fully formed by 5 or 6. I think that it's child abuse to not discipline one's children. The fate of the psychopath is a sad one; they typically grow old all alone regreting the path they trod. I can't imagine them remembering their damage with a fond smile when it gets close to their time to die.

Dianne,

I know that this is an old thread, but I cannot resist the temptation to post here. My sense is that RAD is best left as a descriptive rather than an explanatory model. Where it explains RAD behaviour as emerging from poorly developed attachment, it would appear to suggest that the cause of RAD is poor nurturing on the part of of the parents (a nurture explanation). And to me this smacks just a little too much of mother(parent) blame. I don't think that there's enough evidence to support this, and in fact, as others have pointed out, there's lots of evidence against this -- not the least of which is that many, many children are raised in a much less than optimal environment, but relatively few grow up to be psychopaths -- and we certainly don't see whole sibling constellations of them.

I don't have a problem with attachment theory as a descriptive model -- it certainly describes how people respond to others in terms of their interpersonal relationships. But I'm not sure that I would agree with attachment (or RAD) where it places the cause for different styles of attachment at the level of a lack of nurturance or inadequate nurturance.

Instead, I would argue that the a lack of apparent attachment on the part of the fledgling psychopath (perhaps RAD) emerges because the child has a damaged or limited capacity to bond with others at the outset (a nature explanation).