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U.S. Psychiatrists Urge: Use Us More
In the old days, when people complained that kids were all crazy, it was because they hated their music, resented their freedom, or wanted them off of their lawns. Nowadays, adolescence is a medical diagnosis.
According to the authors of Treating and Preventing Adolescent Mental Health Disorders, one in five adolescents suffer from a mental health disorder. Does anyone else get the feeling that many of these are the types of "disorders" that kids just grow out of?
Posted by Charles Star on 07/26/2005 | Permalink
Comments
Oh, sure. I, for one, am convinced that humans are almost always "growing out" of things like eating disorders, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Yeah. It's well known that that teens will shake off anorexia or SCHIZOPHRENIA with nothing but the passing of time.
Neither the news bit nor the book link state IN ANY WAY that adolescence itself is the disorder, and it's embarrassing, irresponsible and completely dishonest for you to imply that it does. If you've gotta make shit up to reach the point you're trying to make, then the point ain't actually valid.
And I know that hating psychiatry is the counter-culture, "Adbusters" thing to do these days, but assuming that everything the psychiatric establishment has to say is wrong or purposely exploitive is asinine. Psychs and drug companies aren't one and the same; let's not act like they are all one big evil. Because posts like this only serve to further stigmatize the mentally ill - and there's nothing progressive or useful about that.
Posted by: bellum | Jul 26, 2005 6:50:51 PM
Bellum, I think you're missing the point: One out of five.
No one's denying the existence of mental illness, but when you're talking about one-fifth of the population, you've got to wonder about who's defining disordered.
Posted by: Carrie "some of my best friends are depressives" McLaren | Jul 26, 2005 9:34:04 PM
well its not that their disorders their going to grow out of, but their often not really disorders at all, their just kids going through adolescence in a scary and confusing culture.
today's culture suffers from over medicalization something horrible.
Posted by: coldthing | Jul 27, 2005 12:28:49 AM
1 in 5 is definitely high, and definitely the point. The recent reports linking the medications used to treat adolescent depression to suicide are pretty scary too.
I think psychology and psychological medications are important and useful, but I believe that the medical industry is in a position to exploit the anxiety parents feel about behavior problems.
I'm not sure that our culture is making things worse for the kids, so much as the parents who grew up in this culture are unprepared for parenthood.
Posted by: andy | Jul 27, 2005 9:26:07 PM
