SOC243H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Psychoactive Drug, Mcdonaldization, Mental Disorder
Mill,C Psychotrpic Childhood: Global Mental health and Pharmaceutical Children
A child in chains
The movement for global mental health has the aim of scaling up the
coverage of services for mental disorders in all countries especially in low
income and middle income countries.
World health organization position distress as mental and state that mental
disorders are not exclusive preserve of any special group they are
universal and can affect everyone everywhere-physical basis in the brain.
Children and young people make up a special group because mental
disorders are the major contributor to disease burden in this age group.
The rate of children affected by psychiatric disorders is higher than the rate
of countries that have mental health policies in place. No low-income or
middle-income countries have one.
Global mental health wants recognition of the universality of distress as a
mental illness and category of people called children they want global
equality access to mental health treatment. They believe it is unethical to
deny affordable treatment to millions of person suffering from treatable
disorders
A strange irony
In some countries of the global North mental illness in children is framed
as an epidemic with up to 8 million children in the USA taking one or more
psychotropic drugs and with prescriptions of psychotropic drugs for
children increasing in many countries of the global north and south.
There are concerns within the global north about the over prescription of
powerful drugs to children and these are voiced alongside calls from the
global mental health to scale up access to psychotropic drugs for children
in the global south.
This article looks at the psychiatrization of children of the global south and
their psychiatric treatment as making possible ways of being a child-
psychotropic childhood. This article also traces how diagnostic categories
enable a change in how violence is recognized enabling sometimes
harmful interventions to be understood as essential treatments to which
there should be global access.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
No markers, no tests
There's no convincing evidence that psychiatric disorders or symptoms are
caused by chemical imbalance and no evidence that psychiatric drugs
exert their effects by correcting such an imbalance they just alter brain
chemistry through intoxication. There's no research proving long-term gain
for children that are prescribed with stimulants.
Drugs used to treat ADHD are the same chemically as speed and cocaine.
They are highly addictive and have no proven long-term benefit for children
and research into the long-term effects of stimulant use in children has
found suppressed growth,sudden cardiac death,dullness, anxiety and
psychosis.
Side effects
Children on stimulants may over focus on tasks and suppress
spontaneous behavior.
Children diagnosed with ADHD saw themselves as passive recipients in a
process where they had little control both in defining the problem and
deciding whether or not they want to take medication
Neuroleptic childhoods
Many prescriptions for neuroleptics are written off label which is a practice
that allows doctors to prescribe a drug for uses for which it has not been
approved including for use on children.
Neuroleptic drugs have been found in adults to have long-term cognitive
deficits, dementia and atrophy of the brain.
The effects induced by the chemicals are sometimes framed by psychiatry
as symptoms of an underlying psychiatric disorder. the side effects often
lead to more medication.
When children refuse medication their refusal is labelled as being irrational
or part of their illness meaning it can be overridden. For example the risk of
suicide in children is sometimes used to justify treatment with
antidepressants however these treatments actually increase suicidal
behavior in children.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Mill,c psychotrpic childhood: global mental health and pharmaceutical children. The movement for global mental health has the aim of scaling up the coverage of services for mental disorders in all countries especially in low income and middle income countries. World health organization position distress as mental and state that mental disorders are not exclusive preserve of any special group they are universal and can affect everyone everywhere-physical basis in the brain. Children and young people make up a special group because mental disorders are the major contributor to disease burden in this age group. The rate of children affected by psychiatric disorders is higher than the rate of countries that have mental health policies in place. Global mental health wants recognition of the universality of distress as a mental illness and category of people called children they want global equality access to mental health treatment.
