December 10, 2025

EP241 - How to create an ADHD Epidemic

37 minutes

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This episode is an important one! So buckle up. And I mean it.

My guest today is Dr. Allen Frances. Dr. Frances is a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Duke University and most notably the former Chair of the DSM-IV Task Force, the group responsible for shaping modern psychiatric diagnostic criteria used around the world. Once a leading architect inside the system, Dr. Frances later became one of its most prominent and outspoken critics, warning that diagnostic categories had expanded far beyond their original intent and that everyday human struggles were increasingly being mislabeled as disorders.

Over the past decade, he has spoken openly — and with rare humility — about the unintended consequences of his own work. Dr. Frances has publicly taken responsibility for helping set the stage for what he has called the “epidemic” of ADHD and other childhood diagnoses, acknowledging that DSM-IV’s broadened criteria contributed to widespread overdiagnosis and over-medication. He has also forcefully warned about the distorting influence of Big Pharma, calling out how aggressive drug marketing and financial entanglements have shaped prescribing culture and fueled unnecessary psychiatric drug use.

Dr. Frances is the author of numerous influential papers and books, including the widely acclaimed Saving Normal, in which he warns against the medicalization of normal life and advocates for protecting human diversity from unnecessary psychiatric labeling.

So for anyone who is still questioning whether to fully trust psychiatry — or at the very least believes it should be questioned — this is an essential conversation. You are about to hear from someone who was instrumental in designing the very system that has become the global diagnostic bible used by mental health professionals everywhere — a system that may even define how your own child has been labeled or will be labeled with disorders like ADHD.

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