Increasing Mental Health Diagnoses of Youth,
by Non-Psychiatrist MDs

Kermit Cole
By
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6
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The mental health care of young people has increased more rapidly than that of adults, and has coincided with increased psychotropic medication use, according to an analysis of survey data in JAMA Psychiatry.  The majority of mental health care is provided by non-psychiatrist physicians. The researchers conclude that while this trend represents new opportunities to help children and teens, it also “poses risks related to adverse medication effects, delivery of non-evidence-based care and poorly coordinated services.”

Abstract →

Olfson, M., Blanco, C., Wang, S., Laje, G., Correll, C.; National Trends in the Mental Health Care of Children, Adolescents, and Adults by Office-Based Physicians. JAMA Psychiatry.  November 27, 2013. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.3074

Mental-Health Disorders Growing Faster Among Kids Than Adults: Study (US News)

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Kermit Cole
Kermit Cole
Kermit Cole, MFT, founding editor of Mad in America, works in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a couples and family therapist. Inspired by Open Dialogue, he works as part of a team and consults with couples and families that have members identified as patients. His work in residential treatment — largely with severely traumatized and/or "psychotic" clients — led to an appreciation of the power and beauty of systemic philosophy and practice, as the alternative to the prevailing focus on individual pathology. A former film-maker, he has undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology from Harvard University, as well as an MFT degree from the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia. He is a doctoral candidate with the Taos Institute and the Free University of Brussels. You can reach him at [email protected]

6 COMMENTS

  1. What about the word “Diagnoses” Does it ease your mind by conjuring up images blood tests, X-rays and cat scans by a kindly family doctor? Nothing could be further from the truth. There are no lab tests !

    Then there is the term “scientific,” often used by psychiatry to add legitimacy to its “Diagnoses” . According to the World Book Dictionary, the word implies “systematic; accurate; exact.” Those characteristics have nothing to do with psychiatric Diagnoses and treatment.

    That is the subtle propaganda of psychiatry at work—the redefinition of words. The trouble is that their worldwide propaganda on the subject of children and education has thoroughly duped well-meaning parents.

    How is a parent supposed to know that when they are told there child is “sick” and needs medication that’s simply a lie ?

  2. This and so much more!

    I don’t think diagnosis is being performed for most things in a GP’s office. It is treat a symptom and move on to the next patient. And “Oh, why aren’t you grateful that I just gave you something for your symptom? Stop insisting on finding out what is wrong with you now that this will take care of everything.”

    I suppose they need something for the chart and that is when the psychiatric label comes into play. It all the more damaging when powerful psychotropic drugs are prescribed and the label that gets attached to it follows a person like a specter.

  3. Defaming little children with completely “lacking in [scientific] validity” disorders (that didn’t exist when I was a child, because they’ve been voted into existence by the psychiatric community since then). Resulting in millions of children being put on psychiatric drugs that are now known to CAUSE the serious DSM disorders is so deplorable it’s almost unfathomable.

    Mainstream doctors used to know the psychiatric industry was a joke, because the psychiatrists never cure their patients. Yeah, we now have the medical evidence as to why – the psychiatric drugs CAUSE the symptoms of the serious DSM “mental illnesses.” Why are they still looking for genetic etiologies? It’s the drugs, voracious sickos!

    How sad mainstream medicine has become so greedy, unethical, and / or stupid that they have bought into psychiatry’s money worshipping hypocrisy.

    • Exactly. I started school at the age of five and graduated high school when I was eighteen. All during those years I never experienced a school student that could have been labeled as being “bipolar,” or “schizophrenic,” or as having the most bogus “ADHD” label. Now everyone and his brother are “mentally ill.”

      This is all bogus, plain and simple. But why does the American public swallow it all; hook, line, and sinker? Americans have become totally gullible and have had the biggest hoax in history pulled on them. And we allow the drugging of children hand over fist and then try to justify it all. It’s disgusting.

      • I also taught high school for fifteen years and had only one student in all those years who might have been labeled as “mentally ill.” Personally I think he was just having a rough time at home and at school and was only 15 years old at the time. I refuse to accept any of these bogus lables that are slapped on kids at the drop of a hat these days!

  4. I often think this issue is either a distraction or driving pro-psychiatry political forces. It seems every time this issue makes it’s way into the media, the implication is that GP’s are responsible for the mass drugging while psychiatrists would have given them talk therapy or something. But no, psychiatrists would have prescribed them drugs too, and probably in much larger cocktails than the GP would.

    The only reason GP’s are prescribing them is because psychiatry’s bad science is in there text books too.

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