The Agenda Behind ADHD and the Truth About What Ritalin Is

A Historical Look at the Making of ADHD

How did we go from pathologizing inconvenient boyhood behaviour to a diagnosis enticing ever more adults from different walks of life? The now-lucrative stimulant, often accompanied by the refrain “I feel like a completely new person,” is heard more and more. Between these two poles lies a vast history of shifting labels according to cultural anxieties, institutional priorities, and finally a therapeutic culture. From the very start, the diagnosis has carried a motivational agenda bending the definition of ADHD to match the moment.