Psychiatric College Blames Public for the Over-medicating Crisis

By
-
35
99

The incoming president of Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists told The Times that psychiatrists are not the ones responsible for the epidemic of expanding definitions of mental illness and over-drugging that’s occurring in the country. Instead, said Professor Sir Simon Wessely, teachers, parents, non-profit advocacy groups and poorly run government health services are to blame.

Wessely reportedly acknowledged that ADHD drugs are being massively abused and antidepressants are being given out too freely to children. But Wessely told The Times. “Medicalisation is not often done by doctors. In areas that are more accessible to public debate it’s almost the other way around. Now we see a huge rise in support groups, we see pressure brought to bear to bring in labels.” He said parents and teachers also put enormous pressure on physicians to label and treat children.

Conversely, Wessely said psychiatric experts are the ones who understand how to determine when real mental illnesses are present. “It’s psychiatry which is against the medicalisation of normality,” he told The Times. Nevertheless, with respect to climbing rates of ADHD medication use, Wessely said “the evidence that stimulants are good, effective treatments is overwhelming,” and added that Ritalin “is probably over-prescribed, but it’s also under-prescribed because we don’t have good enough [child and adolescent mental health] services.”

Doctors under pressure to label bookish children as mentally ill (SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED – The Times, June 21, 2014)

 

35 COMMENTS

  1. What a farce of an article, but so enlightening and essential for would be psychiatric survivors and protestors to see what they are up against with this latest backlash of spin doctoring to counter the facts presented in recent times by real doctors/experts with a conscience.

    And Wessely very conveniently fails to acknowledge that the biopsychiatry/Big Pharma cartel has used every lie and trick in the book to brainwash the public that it’s bogus, voted in, invalid DSM stigmas are “real brain diseases like diabetes needing drugs,” chemical imbalances, heritable faulty genes and other vicious lies for psychiatry’s latest destructive eugenics agenda.

    Dr. Philip Hickey has some great posts about psychiatry’ new agenda to blame the patients/clients for all of biopsychiatry’s fraud and harm and react to any criticisms with more PR and attack. This article is a very good example of what Dr. Hickey exposes in those recent articles at MIA.

    Also, Wessley fails to acknowledge that those supposed “parent” groups like NAMI, CHADD and the bipolar groups like DBSA are nothing but Big Pharma front groups with most of their funding from Big Pharma as exposed by Senator Grassley in Congress when he outed many corrupt psychiatrists.

    Thus, I think it is critical such articles are posted and exposed at MIA to counter this latest spin on mad doctoring and mad science (see book, MAD SCIENCE, reviewed at MIA exposing that all of biopsychiatry so called science is fraud with their only consistent “treatment” being coercion).

    http://www.amazon.com/Mad-Science-Psychiatric-Coercion-Diagnosis/dp/1412849764

    http://csw.fsu.edu/articles/mad-science-psychiatric-coercion-diagnosis-and-drugs-book-launch/

    http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/07/book-review-mad-science-psychiatric-coercion-diagnosis-and-drugs/

    Report comment

    • It’s a nice strategy right there. You blame the victims and when the shit hits the fan you just make an innocent face and say “but they asked for it and we just couldn’t say no”. Reminds me of my current homeland, Austria, claiming that they’re “Hitler’s first victim”.

      Report comment

  4. What a bunch of BS! If guy is right, what is it that when I go to see a new mainstream doctor, I get hit with those questions that are psychiatrically oriented in the patient history form. Oh right, psychiatry had nothing to do with it.

    And I guess the fact that so many people ended up on a cocktail of meds had nothing to do with psychiatry. They wrote their own prescriptions. Yeah right.

    Arrgh.

    AA

    Report comment

  6. “Over drugging”

    I will never forget “Miss Zoloft” the physician assistant at a treatment center that prescribed this stuff to everyone who crossed her path. No one left the office medicated.

    I had mentioned that I have trouble sitting still, not long after that and some other discussion It was suggested that I try Abilify that makes the problem 10x worse.

    It wasn’t very nice what I was doing playing naive patient but it was worth it when I asked about my chemical inbalance and then asked for a test for it. I was told they are “very expensive” so I asked “how expensive?” and just how exactly does the test work ? I am into scientific things.

    When she pressed a pregnant girl to start taking SSRIs is when I got in her face and asked “whats wrong with you?” and called her out on pill pushing on everyone.

    Report comment

  7. So they use those handy little lists that could make anyone appear to be “mentally ill” by their paltry measures, and then complain that patients are doing what the whole apparatus is training them to do? What politicians they are. Perhaps they should wake up one day and realize that medicine and helping people is not their calling. They should be shills— a career that is better served without taking responsibility for what one does and is best executed with no conscience, at all. They’ve got the “glib” thing down to an art, which is well illustrated here.

    Report comment

  9. Can you say, “Blame the clients”? Talk about double talk.

    HOWEVER, I have been at cocktail parties, with upper middle class mommies, and I have been disgusted at listening to groups of women gleefully discussing which child should have what diagnosis. And are these women doctors? No, many of them held jobs such as Special Ed teacher. My typical addition to the conversation would be, “Are you aware of the fact the ADHD drugs are chemically identical to cocaine?” Typical response, “Oh, yes, but they really calm the kids down.”

    But, what organization has educated the Special Ed teachers on the joys of stigmatizing and chemically restraining children?

    Report comment

      • CHADD would be the Children and Adult’s with Attention/Hyperactivity Disorder group.

        But who funds that group?

        http://www.chadd.org/About-CHADD/CHADD-Funding-Sources.aspx

        Humm, it seems it’s almost half funded by big Pharma and the government. And we already know the psychiatrists are in bed with big Pharma, and are the people who unjustly take away the civil rights of innocent people for the government, and other unethical people in powerful places. But I’m a little confused, how does advertising get listed as funding (income), rather than as an expense?

        Perhaps I will give the CEO a call, and see why they’re advocating that teachers diagnose children for their own convenience.

        It really breaks my heart people are forcing children to take cocaine. I can’t understand how anyone can believe doing such is in the best interest of the child, or wise in the long run.

        Report comment

  12. I have seen it happen again and again where I live in the East Midlands: the parents who can’t deal with their disruptive kids actually want them diagnosed and medicated and put pressure on doctors to label them. Then they feel better: it is not their fault; the kid has a mental problem. The same probably applies to teachers. They are not allowed to discipline the children in their care, so meds come in handy. I don’t envy teachers in this day and age. I wouldn’t want to be one today. I enjoyed the job 35 years ago though.

    Report comment

    • There are always sanctions available in schools.

      The problem is that they do not always work.

      What does work in building a relationship with the child.

      This can be taught.

      I worked in a school with a child labelled as ADHD. He was fine in one teacher’s class, but then every child was in her class. In other’s he played up all the time. In good teaching systems the good teachers mentor the less good ones. In bad systems the child is blamed, medicalised and drugged

      Report comment

      • John, Another problem with the schools in the US, is the “no child left behind” program. This seemed, in my children’s school district at least, to result in a few “mentally ill” children getting their own teachers aid, which would be fine. Except that in order to pay for this, the classroom sizes ballooned to 35-40 children. And in high school that may be fine, but no teacher can reasonably control and teach 35 six year old children.

        Thankfully, in my neighborhood there were many wonderful moms and dads who volunteered tremendous numbers of hours to help make things run smoothly. However, some of us well insured, “stay at home” active volunteers were attacked by the psychiatrists and neurologists. Then defamed as “unemployed,” claimed to be “irrelevant to reality,” and had our real lives declared “a credible fictional story” because doctors don’t know how to listen, “believe,” and respect other human beings. And we did not fit within the “norm” of ‘all parents must work outside the home and worship money rather than properly raise their children’ that exists in our society today.

        Alix, I think it’s today’s societal expectations – the fact our government wants all parents working, instead of properly parenting the children – that is what results in much of the parent’s and children’s angst, and resultant drugging. Our society’s values are wrong, but the way things are set up now is profitable for the “elite.”

        Report comment

    • I have seen this with my own nephews- the mother wants a diagnosis when in fact, it is her dysfunctional relationship with her ex-husband, my brother, which has affected the children. But nobody will address the elephant in the room- the fact that the boys are shuffled back and forth weekly between two households. Nah, let’s drug them.

      Report comment

      • Wow–Hang in there engineer. You’ve got the feeling and perspective and idea clear, very admirably– and worth imitating outright. Still, compassionate understanding takes a bite of you when it comes to keeping your attitude in working order in conflicts that involve kids. I appreciate your sharing and hope it works out.

        Report comment

  13. The beauty of the psychiatric model is that we can argue endlessly about whether kids are “overmedicated” or “underdiagnosed” or whatever until the cows come home, but no one can ever establish the truth of the matter, because there is no way to actually tell if someone “has” or “does not have” a particular diagnosis. Dr. Whasisname can blame whomever he wants, but it is the psychiatric profession that invents the labels and lends medical credence to this preposterous process of labeling and drugging. It is characteristic of the profession to place the blame everywhere but on themselves, but bottom line, regardless of the “pressures” the poor, suffering psychiatrist has to put up with, it is he and he alone who has the authority to write the prescription. Nobody is forcing him to put his name on it. If he’s so concerned, why isn’t he starting up a re-education campaign for these parents and “groups” so they get the data correct? Such an abdication of responsibility is amazing, and yet is the common currency of the current “mental health” system. It is they, the ones with the most power, who are the helpless victims in every scenario.

    —- Steve

    Report comment

    • I think what you are identifying are the maneuvers of people who have power and who are being seriously challenged; “Avoid responsibility at all costs, find someone to blame, preferably someone with less power than me,” is the new Psychiatric mantra.

      Time to hit challenge them harder me thinks.

      Report comment

  14. I went in to get help with a phobia and 45 minutes later, came out with prescriptions that lasted a decade! And when I asked for therapy, I got laughed at! When I asked for help to taper off, I got denied- and told, “You can’t make it without these drugs. You’ll be back to see me in a matter of weeks!”
    That was 2.5 years ago and I haven’t been back to that sadist yet!
    So tell me again how it’s we the patients who are to blame?

    Report comment

    • Most people recognise that a lot of the ‘Attention Deficits’ and ‘Depressions’ don’t exist as illnesses and a common sense approach is what works best. BUT the majority of the ‘Big Labels’ (the bread and butter of psychiatry) don’t exist either as illnesses and practical, non drug help works here as well.

      Dr Peter Breggin described as a volunteer going into mental hospitals, and how long term ‘written off’ people could be revived with human contact.

      Even the so called Acute symptoms are the symptoms of normal anxiety but ‘larger than life’ – it is possible to learn how to deal with anxiety, and whats hiding behind it.

      The good news is that when a person recovers through ‘psychology’, they have a better chance than the average person of leading a fulfilling life.

      Report comment

    • I went in to a psychologist to try and get help overcoming my denial that my 3/4 year old child had been sexually molested, my disgust at 9.11.2001, and to have the common withdrawal effects from a “safe smoking cessation” drug properly diagnosed.

      According to my medical records, the psychologist ran off and got a list of lies and gossip from the people who raped my child, brainwashed my husband with this list of lies and gossip, demanded I be majorly tranquilized for life, then poisoned with egregious drug cocktails.

      Sometimes, it is the doctor’s fault. “Is it easier now, you have someone to blame.” Reading one’s medical records is extremely important.

      Report comment

LEAVE A REPLY