Beyond Ritalin or Acquainted with the Night

Beyond Ritalin: Facts about Medication and Other Strategies for Helping Children, Adolescents and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorders

Author: Stephen W Garber

In the late 1980s, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and its treatment with the drug Ritalin came to national attention and became one of the most hotly debated health issues. That debate continues to rage today. But for the millions of ADHD children, adolescents and adults, it still remains painfully difficult to get clear and authoritative answers to the many questions that this confusing disorder poses. Do I have a correct diagnosis of ADHD? What kind of medication might be helpful? What else can and should I do to help myself or my child deal with this problem?

Now, at last, the authors of Beyond Ritalin, acknowledged experts on ADHD, provide a complete road map and guide for coping with this disorder. Including anecdotal case histories, as well as a complete checklist of ADHD symptoms, charts, work sheets and a comprehensive list of valuable resources and support groups.

Interesting textbook: Fusões e Aquisições de um a Z

Acquainted with the Night: A Parent's Quest to Understand Depression and Bipolar Disorder in His Children

Author: Paul Raeburn

Seven years ago Paul Raeburn's son, Alex, eleven, was admitted to a psychiatric hospital after leaving his fifth-grade classroom in an inexplicable rage. He was hospitalized three times over the next three years, until he was finally diagnosed by a psychiatrist as exhibiting a clear-cut case of bipolar disorder. This ended a painful period of misdiagnosis and inappropriate drug therapy. Then Raeburn's younger daughter, Alicia, twelve, was diagnosed as suffering from depression after episodes of self-mutilation and suicidal thoughts. She too was repeatedly admitted to psychiatric hospitals. All during this terribly painful time, Raeburn's marriage was disintegrating. And so, literally to save his children's lives, he used all the resources available to him as a science reporter and writer to educate himself about their diseases and the various drugs and therapies available to help them return from a land of inner torment. In Paul Raeburn's skilled hands, this memoir of a family stricken with the pain of depression and mania becomes a cathartic story that any reader can share, even as parents unlucky enough to be in a similar position will find it of immeasurable practical value in their own struggles with their children's psychiatric establishment.

The New York Times - Barbara Ehrenreich

So what do you do when you find yourself cast as ''Dad'' in what appears to be a parody of the stock suburban-dysfunction novel? Well, you could do some research and write a book about dealing with children's and teenagers' mental illness. This was the choice that led to Paul Raeburn's harrowing new book, Acquainted With the Night: A Parent's Quest to Understand Depression and Bipolar Disorder in His Children, and it was, no doubt, a healthy one. He got to distance himself, as only a writer can do, from the ugly drama at home, while at the same time producing a work that will surely be a help to thousands of similarly distraught parents.

The Washington Post - Daphne Uviller

Raeburn does his children and others like them a great justice by making this book more than just a gritty exposй of their private lives. It is also a searing and eloquent indictment of America's insurance industry that ought to land CEOs in jail. Barring that, Acquainted With the Night should reignite the revolution needed to overhaul this nation's approach to health care.

Publishers Weekly

Raeburn writes, "[T]here is no manual for taking care of a child with a psychiatric ailment," and it's crucial that readers of this soul-baring memoir know this isn't meant to be one. Raeburn fully discloses the daily struggles he faces with his children-one bipolar, the other chronically depressed-but what emerges is less about them than about him. He is the center of the narrative-a pragmatic journalist with an anger problem and a failed marriage who wants what's best for his children, but like most parents is groping in the dark for what that is. Honorably, Raeburn publicly acknowledges his thwarted search for parenting solutions. This work is, in some ways, his extended apology to his children for this failing. But the book serves a public good, too: it will remind parents of children with mental illness that they aren't alone in their exhausting quest to find adequate health care, fight insurance companies and love unconditionally. In fact, they're part of a growing community of parents scrambling to get their children the few resources that exist. The book, though focused on the personal, does have larger political implications. Unfortunately Raeburn, a former Business Week science and medicine writer, isn't adept at weaving the broader importance into his smaller story. When he incorporates research or sociological observation, it feels segmented and distracting. Raeburn's greatest gift is his brave honesty. He challenges all parents to take responsibility and claim their part in their children's pain. Agent, Beth Vesel. (May 11) Forecast: Raeburn's book is sure to attract attention. The galley cover features a "Dear Bookseller" letter from Gerald Howard, Broadway's v-p, executive editor, and the book has received advance praise from Andrew Solomon (The Noonday Demon) and Mary Pipher (Reviving Ophelia). Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.