America has seen a rapid growth in the treatment of behavioural 'illness' in children with ever increasing diagnosis and medication of the young. There are cases where children under 5 and even under 2 are being diagnosed with severe psychiatric disorders.
I can not understand how these diagnoses are achieved. More importantly I can't understand why they happen and, if they do exist, why they are treated with medication.
The best, commonly accepted model of medicine for mental health is the biopsychosocial model. Simply put it addresses the causes best and therefore the treatments. It has the highest potential of any of the medical paradigms for the mainstream of mental healthcare (I make that precise because I believe it still lacks the understanding that maybe these behaviours, states of conscious, attitudes, characters, etc are not illnesses like physical illness) yet has been commented as offering the least useful or practical answers (Rise and fall of the biopsychosocial model,, BJP). This model considers mental health and illness beyond the physical. The psychological makeup and the social environment are factors which all interplay in individuals to create these undesirable states of being (undesirable to whomever chooses to stigmatise them).
There is so much opportunity in children for psycheducation (e.g. self management) and psychosocial treatments to ensure either the individual can manage their behaviours as an adult and the disability caused by society is least. Doctors are too quick to reach into the psychopharmaceutical armenatarium instead of considering more difficult or less convenient options.
There is no need to resort to biological means of behavioural control, because often that's what the use of antipsychotics is. The above article in Psychiatric Times points out that many of the children and young people being given antipsychotics to control aggressive behaviour. That can change without the use of medication are there are undoubtably many examples of aggressive children growing up to be passive adults. I think anyone can reflect on their own life and consider behaviours they exhibited as a child have changed now they are an adult.
Even worse, the use of pharmacy rather than other interventions (including tolerance of a child's behaviour) is much more risky to physical health and mental health in the long term. Little is know about the use of these strong chemicals in children. The evidence in adults is that they induce physical disorders. Children's brains and emotional chemistry develops as they mature into adults and it is unknown just how much damage can be done if the current trend continues.
The potential is for people to become addicted to antipsychotic medication. It may mean that these children may developed needing antipsychotic medication because they didn't develop the psychological skills to cope with aggression. It may mean they miss out on positive life experiences because of the dulled emotional state caused by antipsychotics.
At the moment the trend in the UK is not the same as the US in intensity but I expect that there has been a rise in the UK (check this fact out) in the prescribing of psychiatric medication and antipsychotics to children especially those of a very young age. Over the last fifty years that would be incontroverible because of the case of Ritalin and the ADHD overdiagnosis epidemic.
This is a trend with significant dangers and it seems little oversight or insight. There's an excellent website called Critical Curriculum on Psychotropic Medications (http://www.criticalthinkrx.org/) that's worth checking out. There are Flash videos and presentation slides.
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