David M. Allen, M.D.

10/20/2026

With observations of an individual's or family behavior within a practitioner’s or researcher’s office, important information is almost always hidden, either by design or unwittingly.

10/15/2026

10/13/2026

“A conceptual error: treating pathological and adaptive as mutually exclusive. Often these are two names for the same thing.” ~ Richard Reidbord

10/06/2026

https://davidmallenmd.blogspot.com/2026/10/because-genes-affecting-behavior-in.html

There is a tendency in many biological psychiatrists to misread the science to way over-emphasize genetic causative factors of repetitive problematic behavior - susceptible to treatment with drugs - and way under emphasize causative environmental factors - for which psychotherapy would be the preferred treatment.

DNA double helix horizontal.png by Jerome Walker, Public domain One thing that I have complained about over the years is the tendency of m...

09/29/2026

In almost all cases, kids who kill parents are victims of severe abuse. But severe abuse alone is clearly not enough to induce a kid to do something like that, since the number of cases of severe child abuse massively exceeds the number of such killings. Most children who are abused do not even tell on their parents, let alone kill one of them. As little kids, they often think being beaten is normal, and worry more about their parents’ mental health than their own. So it has to be abuse plus something else.

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09/22/2026

Now of course children do get abducted. According to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, there are 3,000 to 5,000 stranger abductions per year. Of course, there are 40 million kids in this country, making the odds of such an abduction around 347,000 to 1! Compare that to the approximately 3000 children between the ages of 2 and 14 who die in car crashes every year, or to the estimated 1,530 children who were killed by their adult caretakers in 2006.

09/15/2026

http://davidmallenmd.blogspot.com/2026/09/therapists-myopia.html

Kids aren't the only ones in the family whose cellphone use is causing problems with disciplining them.

Boysmartphone.jpg by Andy Graff. Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain A major deficit in the thinking of many mental health professionals...

09/08/2026

Disclosure rates among patients screened for intimate partner violence in health care settings are not the same as known prevalence of intimate partner violence from research studies. While 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men are estimated to be survivors of intimate partner violence in the general population, disclosure rates in clinical settings range from 1%-14% with screening, typically hovering around 7%.7–11 Among known survivors, only 21.1% of women and 5.6% of men report disclosing to a healthcare professional.

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09/01/2026

One ridiculous assumption implicit in arguments about genes vs. environment based on “heritability” is that parents treat all of their children the same. Do you have siblings? Do you have more than one child? Tell me if the siblings are all treated exactly the same by your parents or in your family. Come on, be honest.

08/25/2026

When I encourage people to re-establish contact with abusive parents, they often say that they don't want their parents in their lives. I reply, "That's because of the way that they treat you now. I don't blame you. However, if they stopped treating you like that, you probably would want them in your life."

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