Is nobody watching the Great ADHD Myth?

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I was expecting to see lots of chatter about this. 1/2hr in - interesting!

This is shocking. Pemberton needs to be suspended by his governing body while this is investigated.

“I agreed to take part in this documentary because I knew it was aiming to show ADHD was a myth and I wanted to provide an alternative view,” she said. “But they cherrypicked, largely misrepresented, truncated and presented my comments out of context to make them fit into their narrative.

Dr Katya says the program was irresponsible and may cause suicides.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/aug/20/the-great-adhd-myth-channel-4-programme-contributor-expert-criticism

We have an aging and increasingly obese population, healthcare that has been ubderfubded with waiting lists that take us to the bottom of global healthcare rankings in similar countries for things like maternity deaths and we have only just realised women might not be able to work because we havent researched long known about female only issues. As women live longer in worse health it is obvious the welfare bill will keep increasing unless we tackle health inequality.

Thanks for posting this. She was an expert on the programme Rory Bremner did about 8 years ago when he got his diagnosis. She showed how ADHD brains are different using MRI so I’m glad to see she’s getting involved in holding Dr Pemberton to account.

If his speciality was anything other than mental health I think he would be suspended for making a documentary so biased.

There is no problem at all questioning whether ADHD is over medicated. There's no problem at all questioning whether the criteria for diagnosis are too weak. There no problem at all allowing medics to question whether ADHD even exists as a separate condition. But not to present the other point of view was inexcusable and misrepresenting Professor Rubia was outrageous.

I have found a clinic prepared to take me on for titation immediately. They do consultations by zoom anywhere in the country. It looks reputable, they are insisting on seeing my original assessment and on going through my medical history and current symptoms. I found them on a Google search, so I'd suggest that your brother tries again. It's private, it will cost a lot but I'm pretty desperate to get a solution to aging with ADHD when I can't just get up and go for a run.

I watched this because I work with children and thought it might be interesting. Sheesh I actually found it really harmful, to the point where I’m considering complaining to Channel 4 - something I’ve never done before!

Then I read that one of the interviewees has said she was misrepresented and I’m not surprised.

I haven’t read the full thread but this programme really bothered me.

I worry that some of the parents of the children I teach will believe it, tbh.

One of the reasons, parents may take children with ADHD to disabled toilets is hand driers! I have DD1 an adult, with a language disorder, dyspraxia, dyslexia, ADHD, epilepsy and sensory processing disorder. She cannot cope with the sound of hand driers. She starts screaming with her hands over her ears, and has locked herself in a toilet and its taken two of us, half an hour to persuade her to come out. We take her in disabled toilets because of her epilepsy (in case she has a seizure), but one benefit is that there is nobody else using the hand drier, because we are the only people in there.

DGC with ADHD and autistic traits is exactly the same. She got so terrified of having to use public toilets, when they were out, because of the sound of hand driers, she practically wouldn’t leave the house.

(ADHD and autism run in DH’s family)

Why make comments on a condition, you don’t have experience of and don’t understand?

As mother to a SEN child who receives DLA, the level of paperwork and stress involved in getting diagnosis, EHCPs and DLA, I very much doubt your SIL is doing that to claim £340 a month. Im currently doing my sons renewal, it’s taken me around 12 hours so far, and I am only about half way finished… I haven’t even started photocopying all his medical and school reports yet. It’s a massive task to undertake and unless you’ve filled one in, you have no idea. Oh and it’s likely DWP will refuse the application or give your child the incorrect rate (which is what happened with mine), which you then have to take to a mandatory reconsideration or tribunal, which is another massive undertaking. I often wonder whether it’s even worth the stress for the money my child receives!

It is far more likely that as your niece has an autistic sibling, she too is autistic but good at masking at school, as is extremely common with autistic females.

It would be interesting to see if other countries try to shoehorn children into an education system that suits very few the way we do.

Neurodivergence exists and always has done, but previous generations were often more able to find their niche in society, might have left school at a young age, found employment that suited them.

Nowadays the pressure on young children is ridiculous. The need to reach arbitrary targets, fit in an increasingly authoritarian environment is pushing more children to breaking point. Instead of looking at what’s going wrong for our children (and many schools are up to 45% SN and growing every year) they’re doubling down in an ultra lazy way, dividing us more than ever, blaming lazy parenting, blaming the children themselves, anything but look at what 30+ years of policies are doing to us all. It’s ridiculous.

It was a biased and weird program, absolutely hated the backgrounds on those main interviews. Also felt deeply uncomfortable with the live experimentation on a child.

Yes, as someone with an AUDHD child who is likely neurodiverse themselves, the background of the interviews was horribly distracting… talk about sensory overload… perhaps that was intentional!!

I think it was, and trying to make a clumsy point.

It's such a head f*ck to try and understand how some previously good film makers got involved in this tabloid journo on film piece that has misrepresented a professional working in the field according to her own statement, that put a young child and his sibling on TV to conduct a medical experiment run by someone with a non-regulated job title with methods, that, as far as I know, have never been tested in proper clinical trials, that used language like drugs, instead of medication to make it even more tabloid.
The Director, Xavier Alford, previously made a heartfelt documentary about his own poorly understood health condition. Leah Green, the Senior Producer has a good rep and is recently promoted to the head of the new Guardian studios.

If you really consider yourself so clever and important that it is in your remit to make a programme that challenges an internationally recognised diagnosis and medication, start with an adult FFS, preferably yourself, like Alford made a programme about himself. Not a child.

Just caught up on this and this is how I came away feeling!

He spent his summer holidays painting and being taken outside walking and playing games and doing yoga.

You can't educate a child to become a self supporting adult that way unless perhaps they are an artistic savant or an international level sporting prospect. Yoga instructors need to know how to manage a business and pass exams.

The child requires medication if he's ever to be an independent adult, which is why he went back onto the stimulants, to protect his future.

He may need to take medication if he's to reach adulthood alive and physically in one piece, many of these children don't (I nearly didn't but thankfully only have a snapped front tooth to show for it) and prisons are full of young men with ADHD.

Alternatively we could spend a fortune putting him in a forest school with tiny classes and constant supervision and let him live his adult life claiming benefits, I guess.

Holy moly this is a bad documentary. Just catching up on it now. Yes, I think it’s overdiagnosed- to a degree. I’ve a kid with raging adhd which has changed my perspective and outlook completely. This feels like dumbed down, poorly edited propaganda. Was that poor kid coached?

I’ve just watched the programme and I’m beyond angry. My daughter is 11 and has adhd, she was diagnosed over a year ago, before her diagnosis, life was becoming impossible for her.

Her brain was functioning at an impossible rate, it affected not only her school work but also every other aspect of her life to the point that doing every day things like going out and socialising was debilitating. She was suffering from panic attacks, severe anxiety and depression.

Since being on medication (she is only on 10 mg’s) her life has changed dramatically. Not one single panic attack, her true personality is shining through and she is happy. Her school grades have improved, she has more confidence, and developed lovely friendships.

A month ago she had a sick bug and consequently was off her medication for over a week and it was hell for her. The same issues presented itself and she fell into the anxiety and panic attacks again. For her it’s a necessity to take the medication to just be able to function.

If she was the child on the documentary then it would have shown a very different story and thrown the whole myth out the window.

ADHD presents in lots of different ways, I do agree it is over diagnosed. But for children like my daughter it’s blindingly obvious she needs medication.

It reminds me of a Scientology-produced documentary that was randomly posted in my door about 20 years ago. Lots of £ put into production, lots of prestigious sounding talking heads, but really a very unsubtle anti- psych rant

I don’t understand your comment. The programme suggested that if the line where behaviour is regarded as normal one side and symptomatic of ADHD on the other is moved and fewer children and adults are given amphetamines and substances with the chemical profile of cocaine it wold be better for them. It says there is no evidence that ADHD is an illness or a neuro developmental disorder, it’s a set of behaviours, that we all have at some time and to some extent, that can be modified. The money grabbers are big pharma and the private diagnostic companies. This programme was made by a bunch of Doctors and Psycholgists and Channel 4. How are they the money grabbers?

And at least one of the Doctors said this. The people at the extreme ends of the distribution would still benefit from medication if other interventions have not reduced their behaviour to a an extent where they can function. Was your daughter even offered other intervention?

You’re naive to think people living in abject poverty wouldn’t do this if it meant a steady £340+ a month plus access to grants and funding, school transport and possibly motability. Really naive.

Having lived with ADHD in the family for half a century. I have zero interest in some trashy documentary that some who haven't lived a life with it might believe.

Prefacing this by saying I’m on holiday in Canada and haven’t watched it yet but anyone that calls ADHD “a myth” can do one as far as I’m concerned. It has made my life hell. It is not a “myth“. As if people with ADHD don’t have enough to deal with in life.

The line is already where the symptoms are having a significant impact on more than one area of your life (or at least that's the case for an adult diagnosis - correct me if it's different for children - I was diagnosed in my late 30s). It really didn't sound like the Dr Max guy met these criteria from what he himself said - he said he didn't think he even had ADHD and I can't believe you'd believe that about yourself if you had symptoms consistent with ADHD that were having a significant impact on multiple areas of your life. But as only a few seconds of the assessment were broadcast (in which, iirc, he said he didn't much like queuing and only one or two other things), it's hard to know quite how legitimate his diagnosis was. I suspect not very if at all. When he tried the meds he didn't try doing anything he usually found difficult on account of possible ADHD - probably because there wasn't anything and he either wasn't honest during the diagnosis process or it wasn't done to the standards required in which case I think they should have exposed the doctor.x

Of course there is evidence that ADHD is an illness and a neurodevelopmental disorder - you don't achieve international medical recognition for a diagnosis without a mountain of evidence collected over many decades of some sort. That doesn't mean the evidence can't be questioned. Sometimes they get it wrong. But to say that none exists is just silly and makes the whole programme look even less credible than it would otherwise have been (not very). Not that I think it was ever at risk form being taken particularly seriously.

To receive DLA, you need A LOT of evidence. They don’t award it just on the say so of the person filling the form in.

As a minimum, you need:

1. A diagnosed disability (or to be on the pathway for one, which would need to be supported by a professional like a teacher or GP).
2. Evidence from school detailing extra care needs. It’s extremely difficult - if not impossible - to claim DLA without some form of school evidence.
3. Evidence from healthcare professionals. For example, a paediatrician.

Is it theoretically possible that someone could scam and get their child a diagnosis + get school to state the child has extra needs + get independent healthcare professionals to agree… yes, theoretically. Is it possible in reality? I would argue no.