A BPS publication questioned the validity of ADHD, but no one is paying attention.

The British Psychological Society (BPS) recently published something called a “Power Threat Meaning Framework” or #PTMFramework if you’re on Twitter. It was 411 pages long, and made various scientifically inaccurate claims that generally encourage the stigmatisation of service users who feel they have been helped by psychiatric diagnoses such as ADHD.

Although registered bodies, such as AADD-UK, immediately voiced their shock and registered serious concern about this, there has been no response from either the funders (the Division of Clinical Psychologists), or the British Psychological Society themselves. The publication of these suggestions, as well as the behaviour of a registered psychologist who took the opportunity to send AADD-UK a series of inappropriate tweets, breaches the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC) standards of conduct, performance and ethics – which are essentially rules for how health and care professionals should behave.

AADD-UK have written an open letter to the BPS which you can read here. They restate their shock and disgust at the BPS’s publication of a Framework that makes the strong and “stigmatising suggestion that ADHD is an illusory, unprofessional, unscientific and unethical diagnosis”. They also note that “our views were not sought before publication” and that although they asked for a response, “none has been forthcoming… although a registered psychologist, supporter of the framework, did send us inappropriate tweets”.

For a body like the British Psychological Society to release a publication that features contents amounting to hate speech about people with a certain disability, and for it to remain unaddressed even now, is nothing short of a joke.

How can this be allowed to happen? How long until you Pay Attention, UK?

via Open Letter to British Psychological Society re ADHD & Stigma