Unbounded & Unbridled

*Disclaimer: Before reading, please note this is an argumentative piece and was written from personal experiences. Although extensive research has been done to support my argument, I am in no way stating this information as absolute truths for all instances. However, this topic is extremely important and I feel many people should do their own research before taking a prescription SSRI or any other mood-enhancing drugs.*

Imagine sitting in your car on the side of the road, with the cars flying by shaking the shell of yours, but not as hard as your body’s shaking; not as fast as thoughts in your head are racing. Facing oncoming traffic, your foot’s on the gas pedal, ready to put the pedal to the metal. “Fate unknown, but it’ll probably be better than how you’re feeling,” is what you’re thinking. You should be feeling better, you should be on top of the world by now because every morning for three years you’ve swallowed a little pill, not really knowing what it does, just knowing it was supposed to make you feel better, “to deal with life’s stresses easier,” per the doctor’s advice. Although you followed this routine day after day, you’re still spinning in a downward spiral; not knowing which way is up. You’re definitely not feeling better, in fact you feel a whole lot worse now than when you started off. Unfortunately, this scenario hits home, because until recently it was all too real. Even more, I wasn’t alone.

Millions of people annually are sent down this path of destruction, with a wrecking ball in the form of a tiny pill in a bottle, smashing through their lives. Only the people we’re supposed to trust, the psychiatrists and physicians, are sitting behind the wheel, pressing the button, and leaving the rest of us to wander around until we crumble and surrender to being devoured by the grip of the pharmaceutical monster. As dramatic as it may sound, this little metaphor is not far off from reality when it comes to the epidemic of “mental diseases” and the doling out of psychiatric drugs as the “wonder cure”. Despite today’s stressful and pressure-to-succeed outlook on life and how it’s affecting our emotional status, clinical physicians and psychiatrists all too often misdiagnose mood disorders, prescribing a plethora of psychiatric medicines, usually without informing the patient of the tragic side effects, or the safe and effective alternatives for treating these disorders.

For centuries, mood disorders have always been considered to be a mystery with no real rhyme or reason as to why they occur. It’s commonly known that physicians tried to “cure” mental disorders in patients with extreme treatments such as the lobotomy or simply shutting the patient away in a mental institute. By the early 1900s the use of drugs to control or relieve erratic patient behavior took hold, thus beginning the widespread belief that mood disorders could be cured with chemicals that directly affected the brain. The only problem with this, however, was that physicians really didn’t know the cause of mental disorders; therefore little research was done with the drugs that were said to benefit these patients. For example:

· In the early 1900s barbiturates (a central nervous system depressant that was used as a sedative) were introduced to treat and control patient behavior. Because of their hypnotic/calming effect, the use of barbiturates continued, but by the 1970s, the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs proposed restricting the drugs because they were considered to be “more dangerous than heroin” (Pseudoscience 24). Despite this knowledge, barbiturates continue to be prescribed to patients today (Barbiturates).

· Another mishap in the early prescribing of psychiatric drugs in the 1950s was the thought that LSD was the ‘miracle drug’ for psychiatric medicine, and was said to cure such disorders like schizophrenia, criminal behavior, alcoholism, and sexual perversions. Ecstasy was also used for psychotherapy, the same drug today is considered to be one of the most dangerous “street” drugs on the market (Pseudoscience 24).

· In the 1960s Ritalin was introduced to help children’s hyperactivity. All the while, Ritalin had been known for its zombie-like effect on children, and by 1971, Ritalin was put in the same category as morphine, cocaine, and opium (Pseudoscience 24). Like barbiturates, Ritalin is still being prescribed today, despite this knowledge.

· In the 1980s to 1990s Selective Serotonin Reputake Inhibitors (SSRIs) swept the world, marketed as “a designer medical bullet and virtually side effect free” (Pseudoscience 25). Unfortunately, 14 years later the general public was finally warned that “neurological disorders, including disfiguring facial and body tics (indicating potential brain damage) were potential side effects, and that the drugs cause suicidal and violent behavior” (Pseudoscience 25). With all of these examples, one must wonder how these drugs ever passed scientific tests, not to mention FDA approval, in order to be put on market and sold to the public.

In 1962, Congress passed the Harris-Kefauver Amendment in which the FDA began requiring pharmaceutical companies to prove the effectiveness of a new drug before it is marketed to the public (Glenmullen 203). With other drugs, like antibiotics, it is quite easy to test their effectiveness by infecting a lab animal with whatever the antibiotic is tested for, and then chart the results. With psychiatric drugs it becomes a bit more difficult, in that you can’t ask how an animal is feeling emotionally and there are no ways to “infect” an animal with a mental disorder. Pharmaceutical companies found a way to get around this problem. Since serotonin (the substance that is said to be lacking in a depressed person) cannot be measured in a living human’s brain and there are, currently, no available tests that can check this, labs turned to “blenderized” rat brains to be the judge of how well an SSRI works on increasing the serotonin levels for humans (Glenmullen 201). In other words, if the serotonin increases in a sample of a rat brain, it is scientifically “proven” to increase serotonin levels in a human brain and given the OK to be introduced to human patients; even if the results on a rodent’s brain has nothing to do with the relation to what those drugs do to a human brain (Glenmullen 201). Another fine example of “in-depth research” pharmaceutical companies have done to ensure the well-being of their clients is to test the medication based upon the changed behavior in a lab animal. Sometimes scientists in the lab measure the effectiveness of a medication by the increase of aggressiveness in the animal while on the drug. Sometimes animals are tested who are deliberately brain damaged to see if the drug makes them more violent towards strangers. “Most doctors, too, are unaware of how the drugs they prescribe were selected” (Glenmullen 204). Let’s reiterate this fact: “Most doctors are unaware…” If any patient in their right mind (no pun intended) was told that their new psychiatric drug was tested first on rat brains or brain-damaged animals, I wonder how many would agree to taking them. Not a good marketing strategy, that’s for sure. In order to convince the patient that they need psychiatric medication in the first place, physicians and psychiatrists have become drug peddlers in the way that they diagnose mental disorders, and then prescribe fad drugs with little or no real knowledge that’s truly the best treatment for the patient.

I distinctly remember a poster in the examining room when I first went to the doctor’s office for symptoms of depression when I was 16. It was brightly colored, with a happy-looking person pictured and the word ‘Lexapro’ on it. My doctor asked me to describe my symptoms to her: tired all the time, not very motivated to do much, a bit irritable (now remember I was a 16-year-old girl, with which ANY of these symptoms are routinely exhibited in females in this age group.) The doctor then had me respond to a bubble sheet full of questions like “do you have visions of death?” or “do you have trouble sleeping?” or “do you have trouble concentrating, or racing thoughts?” The options that I could color in the corresponding bubble on the paper were “Always” “Sometimes” and “Never.” After I had submitted my answers, which took me all of 10 minutes to complete, and a less-than-thorough examination by the doctor herself, she could really only think of one solution to my problems. I was “clearly depressed and should be put on antidepressants right away.” She then wrote me a six-month prescription for this “great” new antidepressant called ‘Lexapro’ and left the room. She didn’t refer me to a specialist, but rather, suggested I should speak with a therapist (who told me I wasn’t depressed, but rather was Bi-polar and obsessive compulsive according to—yes—another questionnaire.) If I had only taken one more look at that poster before I went to fill the prescription, I may have put two and two together. If only I had known that at that time, physicians and psychiatrists rely on a book called the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), in which all mental disorders are clumped together by symptoms. If your symptoms happen to match up with what the DSM lists, then you “clearly” have whatever disorder your symptoms most closely resemble. This book is considered to be one of the 10 worst publications in psychiatric history, according to Simon Wessley’s poll and a vote by 150 mental health specialists. An article that appeared in The Psychiatric Times in 2003, called the DSM “a laughingstock” (Pseudoscience 14). If I were aware of this, perhaps I would have thought twice about swallowing that first pill. If I knew about the rat brains, maybe I would have flushed the pills down the toilet. I could rattle off hundreds of ‘If I’s’ but in reality, it just didn’t happen that way. I was another statistic, another consumer in the “depressed/bi polar” kid drug market. In one hour I had been placed into a category of having a “disease” without any second opinion or validating tests.

There are many ways physicians convince someone who has emotional problems that it’s an incurable “disease.” According to an article, “Mental Illnesses,” found in the Denver Post, college student, Tracy Ryan, was diagnosed with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder at the age of 12. She stated, “Just like someone with diabetes whose pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin, my brain doesn’t produce enough serotonin in the quantities that are needed…” (9a). This sounds like a reasonable explanation to the average person, but is also one of the more common explanations physicians and psychiatrists give to patients. Almost word for word my physician reassured and comforted me relative to my worries about taking psychiatric drugs, and I ate it up, just like Tracy. What Tracy and I didn’t know is that diabetes is a physiological problem that can be tested, while serotonin levels in the brain cannot, and “in fact, even in diabetics, where something is known about the physiology, only about 10% of patients have conditions severe enough to require insulin” (Glenmullen 196). Another thing my physician told me was that my condition was genetic, because both sides of my family exhibited mental illnesses, but what my physician didn’t tell me, was that according to Bruce Levine, PhD, psychologist and author of “Commonsense Rebellion”:

No biochemical, neurological, or genetic markers have been found for attention deficit disorder (ADD), oppositional defiant disorder, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, compulsive alcohol and drug abuse, overeating, gambling or any other so-called mental illness, disease or disorder” (Pseudoscience 9).

Physicians and psychiatrists pinpoint many symptoms as being a mental disorder, when in fact many other factors can exhibit the same symptoms. From my personal experience, I now find it strange that my physician said nothing about my use of marijuana or the fact that I was just a hormonal teenaged girl. She asked nothing about my eating habits, or if I exercised. She didn’t even blink when I told her that the women in my family have a history of thyroid problems (with symptoms extremely similar to that of depression.) It has been said, “proper medical screening by non-psychiatric diagnostic specialists could eliminate more than 40% of psychiatric admissions” (Pseudoscience18). There have been many other incidences where people have been filtered through “the system” by being diagnosed with a mental disorder, when in fact they had other problems that were missed by their physician.

“Pseudoscience: Psychiatry’s False Diagnoses” published by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, lists only a few examples of people who had suffered from misdiagnosis. One 18-year-old girl explained that she was put into a mental hospital for being depressed, and put on psychiatric drugs made her symptoms even worse. She stated, “Years later I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome as well as debilitating food allergies! This was the cause of my so-called depression (21).” Another example “Pseudoscience” posed was a teenaged girl who was diagnosed with a “personality disorder not otherwise specified (21)” and was put on psychiatric drugs that made her suicidal. The doctor’s solution was to raise her dosage. After she was given a medical exam from an outside physician, it was discovered that “she suffered from two infections, one whose symptoms include brain inflammation and impaired thinking. The medical doctor determined she was not ‘mentally ill’ [and] once treated with antibiotics, she recovered (21).” One of the more severe cases was that of “Diane.” It was said that she had major mood fluctuations and erratic behavior. “Without any physical examination, psychiatrists labeled her mentally ill and gave her tranquilizers and antidepressants (21).” The more medication she was put on, the worse her symptoms became. Once she got so bad, her husband brought her to the emergency room. There they discovered that she was suffering from a rare case of liver disease. “Mistreated for all those months, she ended up with permanent physical damage and has to walk with a cane, has difficulty speaking and has brain damage,” “Diane’s” husband said. “…People need to receive proper medical testing before they are labeled, drugged and thrown into the psychiatric system (21).” These are only a few examples of the consequences of misdiagnosis, but it happens more often than not. So, why do physicians keep diagnosing mental disorders and prescribing drugs? Like any other business, the medical industry is driven by profits, and like any other employees, doctors have to pay their bills.

Currently, about two-dozen antidepressants are on the market, with 189 million prescriptions being filled in 2005 alone (“Study” 2aT). The numbers of prescriptions continue to increase. For example, antidepressant sales increased in the United States from 1.13 billion in 1990 to 10.9 billion in 2003, and anti-psychotic sales increased from 600 million to 8 billion (“Pseudoscience” 24). Many physicians and psychiatrists are funded by pharmaceutical companies, which keep the prescriptions flowing despite the dire effects this has on the doctors’ patients. Pharmaceutical companies are inventing new ways to push drugs with everything from labeling the drug name on pens at the doctor’s offices and offering free “samples” of the drug, to advertising with commercials on television and in magazines. According to Dr.’s Peter Breggin and David Cohen in their book “Your Drug May Be Your Problem,” they stated, “Most of the seminars that doctors attend are sponsored by drug companies and too often provide opinions that are biased towards the long-term use of drugs. The doctors never see negative comments about the long-term use of drugs in the eye-catching pharmaceutical advertising that they read in almost every professional journal (49).” With evidence such as this, one can only assume that pharmaceutical companies’ tactic has been to shove the thought of depression or stress or anxiety, or any other emotional problem, down our throats for so long, people will begin to think they have the symptoms listed in the advertisements, which makes them go to their doctors and ask for the medication they saw on television— a strategy geared to not only patients, but doctors as well. This tactic puts money into the banks of the prescribing physicians and, in turn, the pharmaceutical companies who are pushing out the “new and improved” drugs. This is a huge problem because the emphasis is on marketing and profits for the drug makers, rather than actually evaluating the patient correctly and proposing different routes one can take to minimize their individual symptoms.

As I had stated earlier, many physicians don’t even have enough time to thoroughly examine the patient, therefore jumping to the quick conclusion that they are depressed and must have a prescription for a drug, usually one that has just been introduced to the market by the slick pharmaceutical companies. Even more worrisome is the fact that the psychiatric experts who put their two cents into writing the DSM have financial ties to the drug companies that provide medications for the illnesses listed in the manual (“Writers”). Lisa Cosgrove, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts implies that “the public is [not] aware of how egregious the financial ties are in the field of psychiatry (“Writers”).” The psychiatric medical field is getting rich off the consequences of America’s high-stress social structure, while the dire side effects of the drugs that they claim help patients, is more often than not ignored.

After a year of being on antidepressants, I had slid into a deep depression. I was a completely different person and I had pushed everyone I loved away because I thought they were the ones who had the problem; after all I should have been doing great because I was on antidepressants. My mood swings were terrible and I would sleep for hours on end without any motivation to deal with day-to-day stresses and responsibilities. I didn’t think about this then, but I had never reacted this way before I was prescribed antidepressants. Sure, people go through ups and downs, but what I was feeling was getting out of control. Desperate for help, I went back to see a different doctor from the one who had originally prescribed the Lexapro. This doctor said that I shouldn’t be on Lexapro because that medication is for people who are depressed and I wasn’t depressed, but Bi-polar. She then gave me a prescription for Tegratol, an anti-seizure/anti-psychotic medication. So that was that, I was bi-polar and that “explained” away the drastic ups and downs I was experiencing. As I look back on it now, that doctor who blamed my symptoms on my “disease,” rather than looking into the option that I might not need medication at all and Lexapro was having adverse effects on me. After all shouldn’t you be bi-polar before taking antidepressants, and not display symptoms of it after? The Tegratol was not monitored correctly, and I was sent to the emergency room for accidentally overdosing. After the physician who prescribed this medication heard about this, she told me to continue taking Tegratol, but in addition prescribed Wellbutrin. After taking both pills for the first time, I was sent into a hellish limbo that I thought, for sure, I would never get out of. While on Wellbutrin I would have extreme panic attacks, insomnia, fast weight gain, and suicidal thoughts. I was never told that these symptoms might be caused from the drugs. Instead they were blamed on my “disease” and I just needed to find the “right medication” for me. The panic attacks and suicidal thoughts increased to the point where I would have done anything to not feel the way I was. Referring back to sitting in my car, ready to drive into oncoming traffic, is a glimpse of the desperateness I was experiencing. I had such a terrible anxiety attack I went back to the emergency room where they sent me to the mental ward to be given a “medication analysis.” These psychiatrists explained to me about the bi-polar disease I had, but had no medical records from my physician, knew nothing of my past, and did not perform any tests themselves. They only knew I was “bipolar” because I told them that’s what my physician told me. They prescribed for me Lamictal, a “new and improved” antipsychotic drug, but a casual warning that “sometimes people get fatal rashes on it” and then told me to fill the prescription. A week later I got a rash and, via the phone. I was told to immediately stop taking the drugs. Over the phone, the psychiatrist told me to switch to Lithium. I was told, “It works for all people who are bi-polar.” I took the drug and within days I was shaking so badly I couldn’t hold a pen correctly, I had extreme nausea and headaches, as well as panic attacks, mood swings and crying fits for no reason. When went back to tell my psychiatrist about this, he said, “Well it sound to me that you are just complaining, Lithium works for bi-polar” and he increased my dosage. After another week of the terrible side effects, I went back to tell him that I couldn’t handle feeling that way anymore and I wanted off the drugs completely and that I would find a different way to help myself with my mental problems, but in a much more assertive way not appropriate for this essay. I stopped taking all forms of psychiatric drugs the next day. At first, the withdrawal symptoms were unbearable. However, the following week I noticed an extreme difference. It felt like my brain could breathe, that a huge veil was lifted from it, and it could work properly again.

After noticing the differences of my behavior while on psychiatric medicines versus after stopping all medication, I knew that the drugs were giving me the symptoms of my “incurable mental disease.” Unfortunately, after much research, I learned that this is happening to millions of people everywhere. Patients are blindly swallowing pills without knowing what might happen. This common reaction to psychiatric drugs is referred to by Dr.’s Breggin and Cohen as “Drug Induced Toxicity.” What patients rarely realize and doctors fail to mention, is that psychiatric drugs are drugs that directly target your brain, changing its chemical balance and how it functions. Most psychiatric drugs fall into the category of psychotropic drugs to which recreational drugs like marijuana and alcohol belong. Like people addicted to marijuana or alcohol, “psychiatric drugs can confuse your reasoning and judgment, leading you to believe that you are being helped, when in fact you are being mentally impaired (Breggin 51).” With the personal and financial benefits physicians and psychiatrists receive for prescribing psychiatric medications, doctors frequently misinform their patients, or even keep certain information from them. “In order to encourage their patients to start drugs or stay on them…by inflating the benefits and minimizing the hazards of psychiatric medications (Breggin 45).”

What are the hazards of psychiatric medications? Many patients might have symptoms from poor memory and concentration to sleep problems and personality changes. Other patients have suicidal thoughts or tendencies, emotional numbness, anxiety, and depression. Some even have debilitating neurological problems such as spasms, seizures, and forms of brain damage and liver damage (Breggin 55, 56). Even though this occurs in many patients, they are told that these symptoms are caused from the mental disorder, and usually, the drug dosage is increased or another drug is added. Because many doctors are motivated by self-interest or monetary gain, “death and other tragic outcomes from drug treatment often go unreported in order to protect doctors and hospitals from blame and lawsuits (60).” Even more disturbing is that doctors are not the only ones who withhold this information from their patients. Facts about dangerous side effects are usually left out of handouts at the doctor’s office or pharmacies, “as well as textbooks also often fail to give sufficient emphasis to the dangerous effects of psychiatric drugs (45).” Not only are some doctor’s driven by money; sometimes they are just not educated in recognizing drug-induced toxicity. “In recent years, many patients who have toxic reactions to antidepressants are misdiagnosed as bi-polar and put on powerful anti-manic drugs because the pharmaceutical industry has not adequately educated doctors on how to recognize antidepressant toxicity. For years, the pharmaceutical industry denied antidepressant-induced suicidal thoughts and tendencies, saying it was the patient’s underlying depression. In effect this was blaming the victims (“Primetime).” Besides prescribing drugs many times more for profit and to stay in good graces with the pharmaceutical companies rather than having the correct treatment path for an individual, physicians also discount the safe and effective alternatives available for treating emotional disorders.

When I could finally battle my emotional issues with a clear head and without suppressing the real problem with a pill, I found some very effective ways to help cope with the healing process. Rather than blaming my mood swings on my pseudo-disorder, I learned to tackle them head-on and when to recognize too much stress or anxiety. I did this by incorporating meditation, lots of exercise and changing my sleeping patterns. Supplements like Omega-3 (fish oil), St. John’s Wort (however, it should be noted, women who are on birth-control should not take St. John’s Wort as it decreases the effects of BC), and 5HTP also helped to regulate my emotions and moods. According to Lucretia Schanfarber author of “Mood Boosters,” “What we eat and the amount of exercise we get every day directly affects our moods. Remarkable improvements in mood and emotions are quickly felt through simple changes in diet and exercise. Daily exercise and a nutritious diet stimulate the production of the body’s own feel-good, mood-elevating chemicals.” To benefit myself, I cut out refined sugar; bleached flour and other processed foods, and replaced them with more natural foods. There are also other ways to delve into our emotions besides changing the chemical balances in the brain. Talk therapy and cognitive therapy have recently been ‘pooh-poohed’ by the psychiatric system, being replaced with the prescription of psychiatric drugs. With therapy, one can learn ways to recognize problems and face them head on. “Good therapy or counseling does not reinforce client’s feelings of helplessness and indecision. Instead, and in contrast to the tradition of biological psychiatry, it aims to inspire clients with the capacity to take charge of their own lives (Breggin 93).” One of the biggest problems with low-cost access to therapy is that, for the most part, counseling and therapy are not covered by insurance and “in general practice it can be difficult to access non-drug alternatives such as cognitive therapy due to a shortage of trained therapists (“Randomized” 3).” Nonetheless, therapy has been proven to help even the most extreme disorders. Therapists help patients to see what’s really going on and embracing our natural emotions instead of, in the medical field, “making strong emotions seem dangerous, pathological and unnatural or out of control (Breggin 91).” In reality, “especially strong emotions are better seen as strong signals sent out by an especially powerful soul in need of new direction or special fulfillment (Breggin 91).” Good and effective therapy can help patients to tap into this new direction with carefully planned programs to fit the patients’ individual needs, rather than numbing the emotions with drugs.

Perhaps if physicians and psychiatrists learned these alternative techniques to incorporate into their treatment plans for patients with our stress-induced mania in America, and the “in vogue” solution of brain-altering prescription medications may fade into history along with electro-shock therapy and lobotomies. As it stands today, too many physicians are abusing the prescribing of antidepressant and psychotropic drugs, all in the name of “profitable gain” for the medical and pharmaceutical industry. I’m sure the author of the Hippocratic Oath never imagined that money would overrule the well being and best interests of the patient. With time and the patients taking control of knowing what they’re being prescribed, hopefully the medical industry can be turned right-side up after being corruptly flipped upside-down for so long.

Annotated Bibliography:

Breggin, Peter and David Cohen. Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How And Why To

Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications. Reading: Perseus Books, 1999.

This book is packed full of information about every psychiatric drug one could think of, their side effects on the brain, why doctor’s keep these side effects from their patients, how to stop taking psychiatric drugs and the withdrawal symptoms that may occur fro doing so. Each section is broken into chapters and the information is presented so that the everyday, non-medical oriented person can understand it. Both of the authors practice psychiatric medicine and tactics, therefore are knowledgeable in the field they are opposing. Not only this, but the authors include a plethora of outside sources to back their information, which makes the book more valid and easy to digest the point they are trying to make with the book.

I mainly took the information from Chapter 4: Adverse Effects of Specific Drugs, Chapter 6: Why Doctors Tell Their Patients So Little, and Chapter 11: Understanding Your Therapist’s Fears About Nonuse of Drugs (which is very helpful for rebuttal purposes.) This book directly supports thesis on the matter of the misuses of psychiatric drugs, but in a very unbiased and factual matter. In other words, the authors, while it is obvious where they stand on the issue, do not push their personal opinions, but rather present information that backs up their point without directly saying so. The information of the adverse effects of psychiatric drugs, presented in great detail, definitely helps support my thesis. And as I had mentioned above, the Understanding Your Therapist’s Fears About Nonuse of Drugs, is really helpful for a refute to my thesis because of the complications and lawsuits people face if psychiatric drugs are not prescribed, but the mental “problem” is known; for example if a person is known to have mental issues and is not given drugs, and they commit suicide, their therapist or psychiatrist/psychologist would be to blame, and so on. Overall, I was extremely happy with the information in this book and it will be very helpful to help support my thesis.

Brown, Jennifer. “Mental Illnesses Rise On College Campuses.” Denver Post. 3 Apr.

2006, late ed. Sec. A: 1-.

This article I found in The Denver Post explains that there is an extreme and rapid increase in college students around the nation who are severely depressed and so overwhelmed and stressed out that they can’t focus on school. It also focused on the limit of psychiatric help on campuses and the services colleges do offer can’t support and help the number of students who are seeking it. There are a few profiles of different students with different mental problems and how they are/are not coping with it in today’s stress-packed society.

I am mostly interested in using this as a source because of the specific examples it gives of student’s problems. Also there are a couple of good statistics of the increase of depressed college students within the past couple years. For the most part this article refutes my thesis because it focuses on the problem that there are not enough places on college campuses for students to get prescribed psychiatrics. There is also one profile of a student who says that, “Just like someone with diabetes whose pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin, my brain doesn’t produce serotonin in quantities that are needed, so therefore I have these issues.” This statement alone is a perfect example of what doctors are telling their patients, because this line has been one of the main encouragements to go on psychiatric drugs that doctors always tell their patients; including me.

Dopheide, Julie A. “Recognizing And Treating Depression In Children And

Adolescents.” American Journal Of Health-System Pharmacy. 63 (2006):

233-11.

This was a clinical review I found in a scholarly journal. It is full of statistics, research materials, experiments on “depressed” children and adolescents, as well as the FDA’s role in maintaining “black box” labels on specific psychiatric drugs. It also presents research conclusions about using psychiatric drugs alone, piggy-backing them with other psychiatric drugs, using Cognitive behavioral therapy AND psychiatric drugs, or just using therapy as a mean to treat depression in children and adolescents. The review is broken into sections such as Epidemiology and clinical course, which focuses on the increasing numbers of depressed children/adolescents, a list of Comorbities, which present the other mental disorders that hatch from the original one, Suicidality in children and adolescents and how CBT can help this problem, as well as an extensive list of treatments with statistics to back the information up.

Seeing that this information was presented in a pharmacy-supported journal, the information may be biased and lean towards treating depression with psychiatric drugs and CBT. The review is very scientific and uses research statistics to back up information. I am mainly using this source because of the many statistics that it cites, but will also use some of the information about CBT and it’s help with treating depression in children and adolescents.

Glenmullen, Joseph. Prozac Backlash: Overcoming The Dangers Of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil

And Other Antidepressants With Safe, Effective Alternatives. New York: Simon

& Schuster, 2000.

Dr. Joseph Glenmullen focuses on the “Prozac Phenomenon” in America. The book presents the problems of brain damage while taking Prozac or other psychiatric medicines, the withdrawal, dependence and wearing off of psychiatric drugs, side effects like sexual dysfunction, information on suicide and violence induced by psychiatric drugs. A main section in this is devoted to “Balancing Medications with Alternative Approaches.” This section includes “Understanding the Prozac Phenomenon,” “Unraveling Depression,” “Surmounting Anxiety,” and “Conquering Addictions.”

I will use this source for its information on alternative approaches to psychiatric drugs and the “Understanding the Prozac Phenomenon.” This information will support my thesis and give me backing for the alternative routes for treating mental issues as well as the importance of knowing WHY we’re facing this “depression crisis” in America. Like Your Drug May Be Your Problem by Peter Breggin and David Cohen, a doctor of psychiatry and who is knowledgeable in this field wrote Prozac Backlash. The fact that a doctor of psychiatry is against the use of psychiatric drugs even more supports my thesis of the problems that psychiatric drug use can bring to an individual.

Glenmullen, Joseph. Question and answer interview. Primetime. ABC News. 15 Dec.

2004. <http:abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Health/story?id=333966>

This was a discussion that took place on “Primetime” and addressed the “often unrecognized side effects of depression.” Dr. Glenmullen took part in a question and answer interview from various people in the audience, answering them honestly and thoroughly. There were questions like: “What are the safe ways to stop antidepressants?” “What are the symptoms of withdrawal?” “What tests should a 15 year-old girl take before being diagnosed with bipolar disorder?” etc. Glenmullen addressed issues such as the consequences of inadequately educated doctors and how they blame the patients rather than drugs, how every patient of psychiatric medicine will react differently to the side effects as well as withdrawal symptoms, if any. As I had mentioned before, Dr. Glenmullen answers all of these questions and concerns with thought and through explanation.

I want to use this source because of its thoroughly explained answers and the easily understandable information that Dr. Glenmullen presents to his questionnaires. There is a lot of information about the skewed information pharmaceutical companies and physicians give their patients and how often, the patients are the victims of inadequately researched drugs.

Marchione, Marilyn. “Study Sees Success In Depression Meds.” Denver Post. Mar. 2006,

late ed., Sec. A: 1.

This was a brief article from The Denver Post that explained that “piggy-backing antidepressants” was more helpful for depressed patients than just using one antidepressant. It also said that doctor’s clearly stated that antidepressants should be given 6-12 weeks to work, and if they don’t, to try another. There are also a few good statistics I would use in my argument, such as “about 15 million Americans each year suffer depression,” and “nearly 2 dozen antidepressants are on the market—189 million prescriptions were filled last year alone.” The article also briefly mentions the adverse side effects, such as suicidal tendencies, from antidepressants. The article also includes information about a research project that concluded one-third of people involved had success with treating depression with antidepressants.

This article was a refutable one, and poses research incidences where antidepressants DID help patients, although I find it interesting that none of these patients were recorded and watched for more than 6-12 weeks, which is good to support my thesis. I also plan on using the statistics I listed above in my paper.

“Pseudoscience: Psychiatry’s False Diagnoses: Report And Recommendations On

Unscientific Fraud Perpetrated By Psychiatry.” Citizens Commission on Human

Rights. 6 Apr. 2006. <http://www.cchr.org>

This was a pamphlet I found online. It goes in depth to explain the scientific fraud of diagnosing mood disorders, the inaccuracy of psychiatric decree and opinion, “junk science in schools” and the unreliability of the DSM, a book that is used to diagnose mental disorders. It is full of helpful and valid information and statistics. The pamphlet is well organized and has plenty of brief facts and citations to back those facts up.

It also includes the way doctors diagnose mental disorders by basing it off the symptoms in the DSM—Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—which is a bit frightening. There are also many statistics, charts and graphs to scientifically prove the argument’s point.

In my paper I plan on dedicating part of it to the misdiagnoses of mental disorders from psychiatrists and doctors and how dangerous it is to the patient. All of the information posed in this pamphlet that I found will be of importance to my point on this matter as well as my thesis. Since this is put out by a valid organization, I feel that this information will be extremely useful for my paper.

Schanfarber, Lucrectia. “Mood Boosters.” Alive.com. Oct. 2004. 27 Mar. 2006. <http.

alive.com/209a5a2.php?subject_bread_cramb=81>

This was an article I found online. It was very helpful in listing other causes for mood disorders besides the “chemical imbalance” that psychiatrists say causes depression. It also explained why people get mood disorders and how you can help solve those problems by changing your diet, exercise and adding supplements to support your mental well-being. The author goes into length about the positives of specific vitamins that support the emotional and mental aspect of human lives.

This source definitely supports my thesis as well as the fact that there are alternatives to treating depression. It proves that alternatives really do work, because they worked for me and many others–according to this article. I also plan on citing the other causes to mood disorders as well as the different ways you can fight a mood disorder without resorting to psychiatric medicines.

Copyright©NicoleQueen: This is purely a scholastic paper for research and background purposes, it is not to be distributed or used as your own paper. Do your own homework!