Welcome!  Or, Welcome Back! Several of my older domain names no longer have any specific websites associated with them. If you arrived here thinking you were headed for RonSterling.com, I apologize for any confusion that such forwarding might cause. RonSterling.com has been forwarded to this website, DearShrink.com™, since it previously existed to provide relevant office practice and biographic information, which is no longer necessary. My current projects are: Downsizing this site, DearShrink.com, to the essence of what it contained for over 15 years. Think Twice About ADD: Defining the Downside and the Upside of the ADD Brainset. My Online Fine Photography Gallery and Shop. My Etsy Shop -- Sterling Images US, selling art, rubber ducky images, antiques and domain names. My Zazzle Shop for selling rubber ducky-themed greeting cards, calendars, posters, prints, and more. Right: Ron Sterling, M.D. Top: 2003. Bottom: 2023 - Age 77.

A Brief History of DearShrink.com™.

DearShrink.com™ was an online mental health information and counseling center hosted and maintained by me, Ron Sterling, M.D.   I did a standard three-year residency in General Psychiatry at the University of Hawaii. I also completed a one-year fellowship in Geriatric Psychiatry. I worked almost exclusively as a private sole practitioner. In early 2007, I became intensely interested in the diagnosis, treatment, and the research literature regarding what we currently call Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD). I have retired from the practice of psychiatry. However, I continue to write and update my books to reflect new information in the understanding of what is currently called "ADD."

The mission of DearShrink.com from 2000 to 2015 was to provide readers with easily-accessible, authoritative information and assistance from an award-winning psychiatrist and writer. Since 2015, I have been in the process of downsizing this site to relevant content that will remain posted for archival and portfolio purposes. Previously, it had also contained sections dedicated to older adult mental health and mental health care advocacy.

This site was a pioneer in offering accessible, up-to-date mental health information and was actively maintained until I started my intense and comprehensive research literature review related to ADD in 2008. After three years, and reviewing over 25,000 pages of primary research literature, I self-published my 2011 book on adult ADD. In 2013 I updated the book.

I am celebrating the 10th Anniversary of my 2013 book, "The Adult ADD Factbook." It has stood the test of time so far and is still giving readers information that the mainstream physician and media have yet to understand properly. Thus, the misdiagnosis and mistreatment of what is currently called ADD is widespread.

Such substandard care is ignored or rationalized. Providers continue to follow protocols that are insufficient and deletarious, but acceptable and traditional. Many important medications are misrepresented.
The mental health care establishment is so far behind on keeping up with the huge amount of significant research findings gained since 2008 that it is unforgiveable. For instance, the traditional medications indicated for the treatment of ADD are not the "problem." The problem is how they continue to be misunderstood, misprescribed, and misused. They have erroneously been categorized as stimulants, when their actual mechanism of action is central nervous system dopamine enhancement.

"Stimulation" is a side-effect and, if present, is an indicator of too much of a correct medication, or the wrong medication for any particular patient. To categorize them as stimulants means that we should categorize all medications on the basis of their side-effects. That means ibuprofen would be a "kidney damage pill" instead of an anti-inflammatory.

Dopamine enhancers have been erroneously branded as dangerous. What is dangerous is a health care system that allows its specialists in mental health to continue to give substandard ADD care, based on old science and biased by years of brainwashing about the dangers of so-called stimulants. (Such widespread substandard care is documented in at least two recent research studies as rising to the extent of 70%.)

Bottom line. I ended up so incredibly busy dealing with not only sub-educated colleagues but also almost grossly ignorant pharmacists who, on more than one occasion, actually changed my written prescriptions for Desoxyn (methamphetamine) to dextroamphetamine without notification or my permission (against the law) because "they did not even know that such a medication existed."
Such constant and unrelenting ignorance seeped into insurance prior authorization mandates and made it often impossible for clients to obtain the correct medication strategy for themselves. Many insurance companies simply dropped some of the medications from their formularies as if one medication fits for all those folks experiencing the downside of the ADD brain -- suboptimal working memory ranging from mild to severe. International guidelines be damned in the United States. Such guidelines clearly recommend "individualized" treatment.

A Brief Introduction to DearShrink.com™.

DearShrink was often called the "Dear Abby" of Internet psychiatry. This was a leading and popular mental health information center. It was one of the few sites created and maintained by a solo practitioner without the help of any website staff or consultants, nor any corporate funding.

Since I have refocused and retired, this site is no longer offering any online, video, telephonic, or in-person services. Readers should note that many events, dates, services, and links referred to in these pages are out of date. The many older-dated pages here still contain original writing that has stood the test of recent time. However, over the next few months, I will be dismantling and remodeling most of the DearShrink.com website. While downsizing takes place, you may run into outdated pages related to events, services, advocacy and politics. I apologize for that.

This page contains a summary of what has been left in place as being relevant for historical and portfolio purposes.

The main Advice destination at DearShrink is PsychAnswers, where I provided links to my award-winning articles on mental health and social commentary. Most of the articles are responses to reader questions.

My Mental Wellness Web page contains articles, information, and resources for understanding the factors in mental wellness -- self-appreciation, resilience, affiliation, negotiation, curiosity, and exercise and leisure activities.

The DearShrink.com™ Mission.

The mission of DearShrink.com was to not only furnish visitors, potential clients, and clients with accurate information, but to also provide a Web site experience which was highly educational and to assist in reducing the stigma attached to many aspects of the mental health treatment environment.

My books are Available at Amazon.com and at ThinkTwiceAboutADD.com.

• Paperback: Click here to find the paperback edition of my 2013 updated book: Adult ADD Factbook -- The Truth About Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Updated June 2013 (tm).

• eBook: Click here to review and purchase my eBook version (a searchable pdf copy of my 2013 update of the book). Adult ADD Factbook -- The Truth About Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Updated June 2013 (tm).

The strength of my books are in their ability to arrive at a balance between scientific truth (which requires some technical and scientific language) and reader-friendliness. They use language and concepts that are easy to understand and remember, without dumbing down the very important scientific findings about the upside and the downside of the ADD brain.

The Adult ADD Factbook will help you get past what has been the outdated understanding and the stigma related to ADD.

ADD is the current poster child for a large number of baseline sub-optimal dopamine (BSOD") conditions that are significantly responsible for "nicotinism," alcoholism, obesity, many eating disorders, insomnia, fibromyalgia, the over-use of marijuana, cocaine, illicit methamphetamine, opioids, and impulse-control problems of many types.

The Adult ADD Factbook will also allow you to learn about the genetics of ADD, the upside of ADD, and some of the cultural and social implications of the many BSOD conditions. The book has been called "a game changer."

Links to Two 2014 30-minute Video Interviews Regarding my 2013 Book.

Two video interviews took place in 2014 regarding my 2013 book. They were done at the invitation of a Seattle area public television journalist. Links to both of them can be found at my new website project: Think Twice About ADD. The goal of that website is to further my mission to grow beyond calling ADD a "disorder," since the scientific evidence regarding the prevalence of BSOD and its constant companion, poor working memory, in the Western Hemisphere is documented at easily over 60%. In other words, it is the norm.

Symptomatic ADD arises from that population at a rate that increases every year since 1980 based on exponentially increasing daily data loads since the 1970s. That song goes something like this: Increase the data loads and what do you get? With a BSOD working memory vulnerability, a lot of anxiety, panic, forgetfulness, impatience, moodiness and a lot of regret.

"Think Twice" is also dedicated to teaching about the scientifically clear and unromanticized upside of the BSOD poor working memory brain, which is "emergency capability" (optimal threat response brain).

Thank You for Stopping By!

-- Best wishes, Dr. Sterling

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Psychiatry Practice was Closed Effective February 28, 2021

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Click here to visit Think Twice About ADD
Click here to visit my Online Fine Photography Gallery
Click here for my Etsy Shop:
Sterling Images US - art, antiques, photography, domain names
Click here to visit my Zazzle Shop -- DuckiesRule.com

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Copyright 2000-2023. Ron Sterling, M.D.
All Rights Reserved.
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