The Overuse of Psychotropic Medications for Children Essay -- Antidepr

In less than a year, John Geis was seen by four different medical doctors who diagnosed him with five separate illnesses, including autism, bipolar disorder (also known as manic depression), insomnia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). John's pill regimen kept multiplying, consuming a daily cocktail of mind-altering drugs. The harmful concoction included Risperdal (antipsychotic), Prozac (antidepressant), Adderall (psychostimulant). John's story is far too common in America today. In this paper, I will explore what lead up to the mass labeling and drugging of young boys in America. I will provide evidence of unethical and illegal business practices by the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, driven by greed. Psychiatry once subscribed to the Freudian view that mental illness comes from roots in unconscious conflicts (usually appearing in adolescence), that affects the mind as though it were separate from the brain. With the introduction of psychoactive drugs in the 1950s, and sharply accelerating in the 1980s, it was then that the psychiatric focus shifted to the brain, as if it were a physical disease. Psychiatrists began to refer to themselves as psychopharmacologists, and became far less interested in exploring the life stories of their patients and more interested in treating their patients with drugs. The psychiatric profession became optimistic that the use of psychoactive drugs would be beneficial with the new biological model that psychiatry adopted. Their optimism began to fade as serious side-effects of the drugs were becoming apparent, and an anti-psychiatry attitude began to spread rapidly. (Angell) Consequently ,with the   new medical model came the need ... ... XXXIII, No. 13, 4 July 1997, p. 31. Perdone, Matthew, and Pete Yost. "Johnson & Johnson to Pay $2.2 Billion to Resolve Drug Marketing Allegations." Huff Post. HuffingtonPost.com, 4 Nov. 2013. Web. 10 Mar. 2014. . Stolzer, J.M. "A Systematic Deconstruction of the â€Å"Disordered American Boy† Hypothesis." New Male Studies:An International Journal 1.3 (2012): 77-95. Print. Webster, Richard (2005). Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis. Oxford: The Orwell Press. pp. 595–596 Wilson, Duff. "Child’s Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young." New York Times [New York City] 1 Sept. 2010, Late ed., Business Day: 11. Print. Zilbergeld, Bernie (1983). The Shrinking of America: Myths of Psychological Change. Boston: Little, Brown & Company. pp. 78–79