Comments about ‘Mental diagnoses overused’

I felt a little 'down' some years ago.

The doctor said I had a 'chemical imbalance", and needed medications for the rest of my life!
And then gave me an anti-depressant he said was safe, and had little to no side-effects. (Prozac, an SSRI)

Within a few weeks, I got worse.

I'd gone from a little 'down' to extrememly bizarre, hearing voices and even suicidal. I had gone so far as to make a "hunting list" of those I was going to "take out" with me!!!

The doctors told my family that I was already that way. And that I needed to MORE medicine.

Fortunetly, I learned it was a SEVERE adverse reaction by a small 3% of the population to these meds that are considered "Safe".

After thousands of law-suits, the FDA has NOW required a Black Box warning to the labels.

As I read the news, I hear and read about the "suicide by cop", Mother's killing their own children, school shootings, etc....and I realize -- WOW!, I know why this is happening....that could have been me.

I was lucky.
Thousands of other aren't.

~I'll never take meds, again!

spot on! Finally, we are hearing something that makes common sense, rather that "diagnosing" common every day emotional challenges of life as serious problems requiring expensive medical intervention. No one wants to down play legitimate and serious problems, and there are many, but often there are no reasonable "scientific" explanations and quick chemical solutions to the ordinary problems of life. Thanks for having the courage to say so!

Exactly! We need to go back to the old layman diagnoses of just weird, odd, different, down or blue, and just love and encourage one another notwithstanding.

Are drugs overprescribed? I'd say yes. Should we go back to the way it was where the mentally ill were just weird, odd, or down and blue. I think not. If not for a medicine called Klonopin, I'd have no career or sanity due to suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. My doctor also tried other medications that had side effects. Some made things worse. Like it says in the literature that comes with the prescription, report any reaction immediately. If you don't like the answer, find a new doctor. See a psychiatrist with experience in such matters. Take charge of your own life, but don't be afraid to work with your doctor to find a medication if one is needed. Many of these disorders can be measured on a brain scan. It is more than down and out when your neurons are firing at a very fast rate and destroying themselves and your brain. That was what was happening to me. With the medication, this has stopped. I hold a job, am a decent parent, and have a bit of a life again instead of hiding at home after work.

I have browsed the DSM IV on more than one occasion and some of the the criteria for some of the diagnoses seem very broad to me. I think this does a serious disservice to those who really do fit and and need a diagnosis.

Interesting to note that by creating more diagnoses, creates more drugs and generates more money...
Pharmaceutical companies love money. ie: here are some examples of drugs that were once approved by the FDA and were eventually removed by the FDA.

phen-phen: weight loss=big money drug
inapsine: nausea=big money drug
felbatol: seizures=big money drug
propulsid: nausea=big money drug
vioxx: pain=big money drug

Each drug "supposedly" approved and passed safety and efficacious in trials, but hence removed from market due to life-threatening adverse reactions. Which leads me to believe some drugs are passed via "kickbacks" to make a profit.

I read through this "bible" a few years back. It is stunning!

Basically, 100% of America is mentally ill. Everyone falls into one of these categories. I kid you not. Go to the library or Barnes and Noble and read through it. I am pretty normal by all standards. Good job, work hard, ups and downs and yet I would fit into dozens of these categories.

If you like sex too much, mentally ill. Not enough mentally ill. Argue with siblings, mentally ill. Animosity towards parents for issues relative to childhood, mentally ill.

This is just crazy! So ironic, if you think 100% of Americans are mentally ill, you should qualify as mentally ill.

Then the forced drugging of America. During the late 90's and into this decade there was a major push to require forced medication at the drop of a hat. This went so far as attempts to allow schools to essentially make recommendations to medicate children. Thankfully most of these efforts were defeated but scary!

And all of this fits neatly into the economic School of Public Choice, where industries raise up around government regulations, monopolies and lobbyists. Classic example! Painful side effects though.

Sorry, one more post that if I could cite the source I would. The moderator's policies do not allow posting references to other materials.

It was noted in 2002 that during the decade of the 90's American psychiatrists had diagnosed over 15,000 cases of schizophrenia. In Europe, less than 20!

Psychiatry has become big business in America. Just like corporate farming, the auto industry hiring lobbyists to get bailouts or the defense industry. I hate to be cynical but clearly they have stopped trying to solve counseling issues and climbed onto the government license gravy train (Public Choice School of Economics.)

I appreciate this editorial. I hope it can begin the process of getting counseling back to where it should.

To the person at 9:04 AM, "Over diagnosed, over medicated."

You need to contact a reporter and get this story out. My nephew had a very similar experience though the end was tragic. Not only did he feel suicidal, create a list and hear voices he killed himself with a shotgun.

I have NO respect for the psychology industry. JMT hits the nail on the head about this being the gravy train. How many people do they "kill" as they line up for more money?

We have all seen the commercials about medications and they list their side effects. How many of them talk about suicidal thoughts? Thousands of suicides and the feet of these "doctors"!

I can't say what I really want. At least this "doctor" from the 1990's sees this is out of control. Doesn't do a dang thing for my nephew, his widowed wife or fatherless daughter, and the rest of the family.

As a minimum this TICKS me off!!!!!

Bob in line | 10:58 a.m.

Bob,

I'm so deeply sorry about your nephew.

I've been in his shoes.
If ever there was a Hell on Earth, that was it for me.

I heard a little 9 year old boy hung himslef last week. Sad.
I'm waiting for them to come out and say something about his meds. I'm sure they caused it.

I've tried to get media attention to this - even the Deseret News - but the stories get spiked.

Furtheremore, the lawsuits the do get filed never go to court.

The big pharmaceutical companies make $billions annually, and since this is really more about businees that a persons health or well-being,
they choose the cheaper business option and pay a few $millions in out of court settlements and keep things out of the lime light of the media "watch-dogs".

If you're LDS,
the 89th section of the D&C warns about "conspiraing men", and most mormons simply attribute it to coffee, tea, and tobacco.

Your nephew will be judge by and All-Knowing judge.

May those businessmen response be judge also.

As someone that has worked in the mental health field way to long I see two main problems. The fist problem is that many family doctors prescribe psychatric medication because they have the same layman’s understanding of the DSM that you have. If someone is functioning in the world at the level you present they should never be diagnosed with a mental disorder and surely should not be given medication. The most important criteria for ALL diagnosis is that it must markedly interfere with your everyday life causing you significant distress. Even when this criteria is meet medication should never be the first option. One way too begin to really curb the over medication of America is to restrict prescription rights of any psychiatric medications to psychiatrist and not allow anyone that is not a psychiatrist to prescribe these drugs and secondly psychiatrist need to be held accountable for their decisions to prescribe and continuing to prescribe medications as this to often does not happen, which is the second problem. .Too many times I have seen people misdiagnosed given a prescription and shown the door.

Again as someone that has worked in the mental health field for far to many years I think it is important to note not everyone in the mental health field agrees with the horrible way that to many doctors and psychiatrist behave. some choose to act in reckless ways that harm their patients and over diagnosis those that do not need medication. I agree that the above person should speak out if they are able. It is time to hold those that behave this way accountable for their poor actions. There are those few cases where someone really does need medication and those even fewer cases where they may need long term medication but to often doctors and psychiatrist look for the easy way out partially because of their own unwillingness to deal with their patients and partially because we live in a society where people (including to many patients) think that life is like a sitcom where everything should be neatly rapped up in a happy little half hour package and rather then have the hard discussion with their patients doctors and psychiatrist throw medication at the problem.

To the comments directed at myself and Bob in line: Thanks!

And I wish more professionals had the same view you did. I worry you are the minority in your profession and we sadly seem to deal with the majority that do not handle themselves well.

There must be some reason in this discussion, and again this editorial is a great step in hopefully an honest dialogue.

thank you, sometimes I do feel like the minority in my field and i agree these type of editorials are a good step forward. I push everyday for a more stringent adherence to the laws and ethics that should be driving my field but somedays it seems to fall on deaf ears.

There is hope. We have not been asking the right questions to solve this mental health issue. What if the symptoms are not the root of the problem? Symptoms show up way after a problem happened. In an enlightened society, our questions should be to solve the cause of the problem rather than find symptom relief. We were not created with a lack of drugs, we were divinely created with an intelligence so far advanced that our body takes care of problems like this as long as it has nothing interfering with its ability to heal and make proper changes via the master control center of the body called the nervous system. There are a few of us who have been helping people with mental health issues while doing a little known procedure called upper cervical specific chiropractic. Our objective is to measure and remove nervous system interference, thus allowing the intelligent body to restore blood-chemistry levels and other brain-body feedback mechanisms. It is my hope that we will see ourselves not as broken and needing some man-made drugs, but rather as perfect, the way God created us to be perfect.

As someone with extensive experience in family practice and internal medicine, I have to take exception to your comment. Almost invariably, patients returning from Psychiatry referrals, or new patients entering my practice in follow up of psychiatry care are horribly over-medicated. Every last symptom, whether severe or not gets another drug with extensive side effects. Unless people are turned into unfeeling zombies, psychiatrists-with exceptions- generally throw more meds at the patient. I would much rather have a conservative family practice doctor or even a physician assistant treat me or my family members than the majority of psychiatrists.

I agree that psychiatrist far to often do throw medicine at the problem making them nothing more then walking zombies but I think it is fool hearted to want to place your trust in someone that does not have the proper training in both medicine and psychology for what they are doing. I think Psychiatrist should prescribe the medication but I think they need to be strictly held accountable for their actions including working closely with the patients family doctor. I do not blame you for feeling safer with your family doctor but we should not have to give in to lowered expectations of people (psychiatrist) that should be behaving professionally.

If people want to pay for a specialist to handle routine and common problems, that is their choice. But much of the high cost of medicine results from that mentality. Specialists should be utilized for rare, uncommon, and/or difficult pathology that is unresponsive to appropriate first line therapy.

Having had a wife with so called depression for the last 20 years and having experienced the quackery of the mental health profession for the same period I can tell you without hesitation that the whole industry is simply that, an industry.
All any of them are after is money. They do more harm than good and charge an hourly rate that is ridiculous,none of them are worth a dime. The whole mental health industry is a big fraud and the drugs they prescribe are toxic poison, nothing less.If ever an industry needed investigating this is it.
We have been to countless "professionals" and they are all a major waste of time and money, they do nothing and offer no advice that you couldn't have thought of yourself, call a help line if you need someone to talk to instead of these frauds.

I am a clinical social worker and provide outpatient therapy for a variety of clients. I agree that labeling people with a diagnosis can, and often does, lead to mistreatment, especially with psychiatric medication. However, I hope that both therapists and psychiatrists would use the DSM as a guideline for treatment and focus more on assessing how the client's symptoms are negatively affecting their functioning in everyday life. As a therapist, I continually assess my client's functioning and level of need for services. As they begin to improve, I help them transition out of therapy, regardless of their diagnosis. Unfortunately this doesn't always happen with therapy and medication and this can lead to very dangerous results. But the DSM does not have to control what services professionals provide. I believe worry should not be aimed at diagnoses but at what professionals choose to do with them. We need to stop treating a diagnosis and focus on the person instead. If professionals are responsible with clients, they can still provide much needed services without making matters worse with the harmful side effects of unnecessary medication or therapy that is not helping improve symptoms.