“I shouldn’t have to tell you this!” Peter’s* exasperated mother felt like a “broken record,” once again admonishing Peter for yet another instance in which he had misinterpreted commands, directions, rules, or social cues, or had seemingly disregarded the “personal space” of others, or had blundered into trouble because he naively failed to understand...
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Attention Deficit Disorders   ADHD, or “Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,” is a diagnosis, or actually a set of diagnoses, that involve symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and behavioral impulsivity. The “predominantly inattentive” subtype of ADHD (frequently referred to simply as “ADD”) pertains to symptoms such as difficulty maintaining focus on a task, being easily distracted...
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Eating Disorders Eating disorders comprise a group of serious psychiatric illnesses. In the condition known as anorexia nervosa, patients starve themselves, sometimes to the point of serious medical risk or death. In bulimia nervosa, they engage in “binges” (episodes of consumption of large amounts of food, often eaten quickly and to the point of...
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  Self-injury behaviors in adolescents have been reported with increasing frequency during recent years. These behaviors include cutting, burning, and other methods of deliberately inflicting tissue damage upon oneself. Parents and others are often bewildered by such behaviors, since most of us have never experienced a temptation to deliberately hurt ourselves. To us, these...
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