Rx: A Shelf Load Of Books

By Andrea Sachs

Lawrence Diller's Running On Ritalin is the book most people are talking about these days, but it's hardly the only one out there. In the past 18 months a flurry of ADD and ADHD books have hit the shelves, each with its own view on whether to medicate or not to medicate.

Dr. William Sears and Lynda Thompson, authors of The A.D.D. Book (Little, Brown), believe Ritalin can be helpful but urge parents to explore behavior-modification strategies such as neurofeedback. "Medication is never the only answer," they write. "Nor is it a cure." In mid-December, Hazelden/Rosen will be publishing Ritalin: Its Use and Abuse, a guidebook for teenagers. The author, Eileen Beal, writes that Ritalin can be quite helpful, but that there are problems that go with the territory, such as the pressure to share the medicine with classmates.

In The Attention Deficit Answer Book (Plume), Dr. Alan Wachtel writes that even when medication is warranted, Ritalin is not necessarily the best choice. Also, says Wachtel, there are "behavioral techniques" and "psychological interventions" to employ. In January, Norton will be publishing Ritalin Nation. The author, Richard DeGrandpre, argues that the demand for the drug is an unfortunate result of our speeded-up society. "We're not just moving through our lives faster," he writes. "We're also acquiring a heightened need for speed."

--By Andrea Sachs