Over-Medicalization of Everyday Life

There’s an interesting new article by Paula Caplan here. It discusses the harmful effects of psychiatric “diagnoses,” including the fact that because of these labels, people have lost their “… jobs, custody of children, health insurance, and the right to make decisions about their medical and legal affairs.” Paula also mentions a petition she created in December 2011 calling for “Congressional Hearings about Psychiatric Diagnosis.” The petition is still up. You can find it here ...

BACKGROUND I recently wrote a post called DSM-5: Another Step in the Wrong Direction. In that article I argued that DSM-5 was simply another step in the APA’s ongoing agenda to medicalize all human problems and to legitimize the administration of drugs as the front line “solution” to these problems. I also expressed concern that the widely publicized movement to develop an alternative diagnostic system might not look all that different from what we have today. ...

The Newtown mass murders have generated widespread demand for improved “mental health” services, and even for mandatory mental health screenings for schoolchildren. The notion embedded in these demands is that the perpetrators are “mentally ill,” and that early identification will enable psychiatrists to treat (i.e. drug) them before they can do any damage. As I’ve said many times, the APA’s definition of a mental disorder is essentially: any human activity that entails significant problems. So, of course, provided we accept this definition, all the mass murderers are mentally ill. But all we’re saying here is that mass murder is problematic behavior. (Wow – such wisdom!) ...

Recently, courtesy of Hersteltalent on Twitter, I came across this newspaper article: Doctors Urge Mental Health Screenings with Physicals. It appeared in USA Today, and was written by Jessica Contrera of the Lafayette, Indiana Journal and Courier. Dateline March 12. The gist of the article, which is written for the general public, is that when you go in to your doctor for a check-up, you should ask for a mental evaluation as well. The article reminds us that “25% of American adults suffer from some form of mental illness each year.” ...

There’s another benzo withdrawal story on Mad in America: The 99th Mile: When Benzo Withdrawal Meets Parenthood by Melissa Bond. Melissa recounts that when her Down’s syndrome son was 18 months old and her baby daughter was three months, she consulted a physician because of problems with insomnia and consequent exhaustion. He prescribed 2 mg of Ativan daily, which he increased to 6 mg within six months. Melissa describes in detail the problems of withdrawal, and the extreme measures she had to take to cope with this. ...

In my earlier post on this topic, I mentioned that benzo withdrawal can be dangerous, but it’s been drawn to my attention, by Monica, that perhaps I didn’t adequately stress how dangerous it can be in some cases. If you click here, you can read Monica’s own account of her experience in a detox center in Florida. It’s a thought-provoking article. Because for many years benzos were dished out so liberally, there is still a mistaken perception that they are relatively safe and benign, which is not the case. ...

On March 5, 2013, a bipartisan panel of leading mental health experts and parents of children with “mental disorders” held a conversation (that’s newspeak for meeting) in Washington D.C. on the topic: Violence and Severe Mental Illness. The invited panelists were: Thomas Insel, MD, Director of NIMH Harold Koplewicz, MD, President of Child Mind Institute E. Fuller Torrey, MD, Founder of Treatment Advocacy Center Michael Welner, MD, Founder and Chairman of The Forensic Panel Michael Fitzpatrick, MSW, Director of NAMI And three parents of "diagnosed" children ...

I’ve recently come across an article from the Manchester Guardian on this topic. The article is by Sarah Boseley, and is a review of a UK study in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society written by Aideen Maguire, C. Hughes, Chris Cardwell, and Dermot O’Reilly. The researchers examined the Northern Ireland prescribing database and discovered that when people were admitted to nursing homes, the rate at which they were prescribed anti-psychotic drugs increased from 1.1% to 20.3%! ...

I came across an interesting article Psychiatric Medication or Play Therapy? by Bob Fiddaman, a New Zealand writer. The article compares the efficacy and dangers of play therapy vs. pharmaceutical products for children with various problems. Here are some quotes: "…play therapy outcome studies support the efficacy of this intervention with children suffering from various emotional and behavioral difficulties." "Pharmaceutical companies spend billions on marketing psychiatric medication." "Front groups that purport to fly the mental health flag are, in fact, nothing more than agents, pimps for the pharmaceutical industry." ...

Until just a few years ago, the spurious nature of mental illness received little or no attention either in professional circles or in the general media. There were a few of us “cranks” who poked away at the issue, but peer condemnation was usually swift and outspoken. On one occasion I was called an “anti-science Nazi” for daring to suggest that the condition known as ADHD might have more to do with ineffective parental discipline than with brain chemistry. We were voices in the wilderness. ...