"HEY DOCTORS! LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE!" | ADHD Information

http://www.thewissahickon.com/issues/november%2003/doctors.h tml

"Hey! Doctors! Leave the kids alone!

Don’t you wish you were free, Lenina?

I don’t know what you mean. I am free. Free to have the most wonderful time. Everybody’s happy nowadays.

He laughed. Yes, ‘Everybody’s happy nowadays.’ We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else’s way.

I don’t know what you mean, she repeated. Why don’t you take some soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours? You’d forget all about them. And instead of feeling miserable, you’d be jolly. So jolly.

- from Brave New World

A recent Time Magazine cover asked the question, “Are we giving kids too many drugs?” The short answer is yes. I’m not going to overwhelm you with statistics (they are readily available elsewhere), but the fact of the matter is that just two decades after Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No to drugs campaign, parents are now all too eager to give drugs to their children. The rate at which we medicate children for illnesses real and imagined is just astounding. The pharmaceutical industry is America’s largest. Drugs are now used to ease millions of cases of ADD, depression, and even social shortcomings like anxiety.

Elio Frattelli, author of Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain, argues that the reason drug prescriptions have skyrocketed in recent years is not an increase in mental illness in the population, but an almost universal acceptance within the medical community of a scientific materialism worldview. Simply put, this means that most doctors see the brain as no more than the sum of its biological parts. Mental activity, then, such as thoughts and emotions, are deconstructed into bio-chemical processes within the skull. Boston was wrong; love is nothing more than a feeling. The materialistic worldview is what gives psychiatrists license to prescribe drugs to almost anyone who is feeling unwell. And they do.

The problems with over-medication are serious, if subtle. One issue is that drugs do indeed alter your mood, often positively. Many depressed people feel that they will never recover without the help of medication. But, some psychiatrists are starting to warn of the problems with fixing all mental and emotional problems with medication. First, depression is – in many cases – a symptom of another problem, not an existential stage in itself. People become depressed for various reasons – failed relationships, death of loved ones, financial problems. The solution for these kinds of depression should not be medication alone, however, because the problem is not simply a biological one. A person who cannot “bounce back” from a failed relationship must emotionally recover – through counseling, reflection, and distance – from the event. Medication, however, masks the problem by allowing someone to “feel” good, even if they have not emotionally recovered. The problem, then, is that many people – like in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World – confuse feeling good with being good, and they never develop the emotional strength to work through problems; they get addicted to the quick fix.

This is a serious philosophical error. The good feelings that we get are not ends in themselves, they are a result – perks, if you will – of striving for a higher good. Let me use an example to make this clear. An artist derives great pleasure from creating art. But the pleasure is not what she ultimately seeks; the artist creates art for the sake of art. If it was simply the pleasure that she seeks, she could just take a pill – the soma of Brave New World – that creates those pleasurable feelings in her mind. But no artist would be satisfied with just the sensations of art without the act of creation. In the same way, when we take drugs to create feelings and moods in our brains, we might feel better, but it would be better if we did the emotional work necessary to be better.

This is not to sound harsh and insensitive. The general consensus among doctors is that some cases of mental illness are so severe that only medication will help a patient. And only until you are in that position can you ever define necessity. But in a world where emotions are reduced to mere bio-chemical processes, drugs will be seen as the only treatment necessary for emotional and mental illness.

The danger, of course, is that soon drug-induced mental states will dominate a person’s normal psyche. This is already commonplace. You often hear the sentiment that “I can’t be myself until I take my medication.” Besides the obvious fallacy in the statement itself, the problem is that one could easily reach a point where he no longer recognizes a difference between his medicated self and his clean self. The implications are many. If one’s wife is constantly depressed and unwilling to have sex, should you insist that she take a drug that will put her in a more compliant mood? Is this consensual sex?

This scientifically materialistic view, coupled with new advances in gene therapy, could change what it means to be human. Already, doctors prescribe drugs which not only treat genuine mental illnesses, but also socially inhibitive behaviors like anxiety and shyness. The next logical step is drugs which will “fix” socially inappropriate behaviors. Parents could use drugs to prevent children from lying and cheating. The government would do the same. Accused criminals could be forced to take truth serum before they take the witness stand. Convicted rapists could be stripped of their mojo. The possibilities are real and they are scary.

Do we really want a world where emotions are manipulated by drugs which often have unpredictable side effects? Too late, you might say. But that’s not true. Many of the emotional illnesses that we treat with medication can be cured without drugs. It seems that any young boy who cannot sit still in school for 8 hours automatically qualifies for some variation of ADHD and the requisite medication. First, why does it surprise us when little children cannot sit still for hours upon end? Instead of drugging them – which is, in effect, a means of social control – why not encourage their natural instincts of playfulness and creativity? Who is going to be the healthier child in the future, the boy who is drugged into submission at school, or the boy who is permitted to act like a child? Why don’t we just let kids be kids – there’s plenty of time for drug addiction later. "

[QUOTE=repairman]Plesae do not post to trolls[/QUOTE]

Oh! My!!! did someone say T. Not Here too!

i have been abused, accused wrongly of being pro "Meds Only" by more than One of The Little Ones as Well as some Bigger Ones!........ Silence in the Corner of the Basement... did someone Whistle..AH? Help...

[QUOTE=ryan1950]

[QUOTE=pastmember/Bren]Why should a child struggle though. There are real childhood issues for Special kids and is it fair not to take of their Medical needs. I do agree that over diagnoses does happen. My issue is only private education inforces values/Morals public doesn't. Our kids were well manored til attending public education. We let them no what the peers do is not allowed in our family. [/QUOTE]

The over use of Meds is, for various reasons, a reality, I must agree!.. But, the alternatives which are known only work with a small number of individuals so far, therefore are a long way from getting an acceptable option choice to Meds.

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I think you've both (bren and ryan) got good points there.

I thought the article was interesting as it does take 'genuine mental illnesses' into account but is basically commenting (as I see it) on the huge overuse of medication.

[QUOTE=curus][QUOTE=ryan1950]

[/QUOTE]

I think you've both (bren and ryan) got good points there.

I thought the article was interesting as it does take 'genuine mental illnesses' into account but is basically commenting (as I see it) on the huge overuse of medication.

Why Thank You! Curious Little Phrase.. But anyway

[/QUOTE] Why should a child struggle though. There are real childhood issues for Special kids and is it fair not to take of their Medical needs. I do agree that over diagnoses does happen. My issue is only private education inforces values/Morals public doesn't. Our kids were well manored til attending public education. We let them no what the peers do is not allowed in our family. Plesae do not post to trolls

Don't mean to offend anyone, but I'm not on this board for children. I am not one, I don't have one, and I actually don't really give a sh*t what curus has to say about children. hmmm yeah. I guess I should be flattered???? you copied my idea and did something to it. I don't know what as I have not figured it out yet. Maybe it is that darn adhd kicking in again.. I BETTER TAKE SOME MEDICATION SINCE I DON"T FIND ANY ANSWERS IN CURUS POSTS...

curus - I was under the impression that you were trying to seriously debate the pro/anti med issue. I see from this I was wrong.

This is pure rhetoric - and crap rhetoric at that.

This anti-med tirade has no usable info - just a lame attempt at trying to make legitamate medical aids seem to be synonymous with illegal drugs. Nancy Regan? That pumped up mental patient who seeked help from the stars to help her retarded husband keep his throne? Puh-lease!

Not one fact, not one reasonable argument. Brave new world? This one even uses bad ancient fiction to try and bolster the argument. Can we say L.Ron boys and girls? I knew ya could. Even dear aldous would be rolling in his grave with laughter.

Oh, doctors can't figure out the brain as a biological thing people. We have a soul and you can't medicate the soul. Love is bigger than biology (that's crap) - and ipso facto presto chango you can't figure out the rest.

I was on your side curus - but you post this? I'm disappointed honestly.

Glen, you must be so disappointed - being on my side and all LOL.

You believe the author's article is "pure rhetoric" and "crap rhetoric"?

This part included?

"The general consensus among doctors is that some cases of mental illness are so severe that only medication will help a patient. And only until you are in that position can you ever define necessity."

I actually believe that the paragraph here is true, that severe mental illness does need medication.

Why not complain to the author.

The author did not post here - curus did. I didn't go to the author's website and critique it. It's not appropriate here - try the www.ritalinkills.org - it's about as inappropriate there as here.

To say that only the worst of illness needs medication means one thing to me - that if your child had a pain of any kind - you would wait until it was so severe to be crippling before giving medical aid. That's pretty harsh treatment.

Oh you disappoint me too Glen, bring up that old pharmaceutical company line of scientology.

"Can we say L.Ron boys and girls? I knew ya could..."

Unless you're right of course - why not ask the author?

[QUOTE=GlenW]

The author did not post here - curus did. I didn't go to the author's website and critique it. It's not appropriate here - try the www.ritalinkills.org - it's about as inappropriate there as here.

[/QUOTE]

I have seen the Ritalinkills site - to dismiss the fact that medication has killed those children means only one thing to me. Thats pretty harsh treatment.

The thread I came in on - someone had posted Fred Baughman's information. So I guess they shouldn't have done that either hmm?

So was the article ALL pure and crap rhetoric, you didn't answer that?

Anyway, thats enough replying to 'mind-game posts' for me today, far better things to do LOL.

curus38645.6545601852i find sense in it. been reading this site for a long time, sick of what i read.dks - what exactly in our posts make you so ill? You are here to learn about and discuss ADHD I would assume - so maybe you can fill us in on your view on it?We had a poster like her on our "Bipolar" board too. In the end, we decided it was best to ignore her. On THAT board, the poster was banned all the time for sprouting scare stories, but he/she would change his/her name and had to be banned all over again. My advice: Don't feed the monkey. There is an agenda here and it is to scare parents who are trying hard to treat their kids. By her admission, SHE is just a kid at 19, and not even a college grad yet. Ignore and it will go away, at least to YOU. Is there an /ignore feature? Block out her posts, if so.