XPost: alt.society.mental-health, alt.psychology.personality   
   From: pjbrass@uswest.net   
      
   Huffington Post   
      
   Psychiatry Makes War on "Bipolar Children"   
   Dr. Peter Breggin   
   May 23, 2008   
      
   The front cover of the May 26, 2008 Newsweek has a banner headline,   
   "Growing Up Bipolar" with a split-face photograph of a ten-year-old   
   boy. The headline should have read, "Victim of Psychiatric Assault."   
   In daycare 18-month old Max kicked, bit and spat on his larger peers.   
   Apparently before he was two years old, his overwhelmed parents took   
   him to a famous Boston psychiatrist -- having been trained in   
   psychiatry at Harvard, I can confirm that famous Boston psychiatrists   
   are among the most arrogantly pro-drug -- and within an hour the   
   toddler had been diagnosed as bipolar. Right away he was put on the   
   adult "mood stabilizer," Depakote. Depakote is an anti-seizure drug   
   that is so sedating that it can, however briefly, subdue a child, at   
   least until the effect wears off.   
      
   According to the parents, the doctor told them that the bipolar   
   diagnosis was a "life sentence." It was a life sentence -- to being   
   pharmacologically abused by psychiatrists. At the age of ten, Max is   
   now eight years into his sentence, and getting increasingly abused by   
   his physicians.   
      
   The doctor must have put Max on a lot of drugs because a second famous   
   psychiatrist wanted to "streamline" the meds. Reducing anyone's drugs   
   is nowadays a rarity in psychiatry; Max's first psychiatrist must have   
   been over the top.   
      
   A mere ten years old, Max has already been on 38 different   
   psychoactive drugs. "His parents aren't happy about it, but they have   
   made their peace with it." Newsweek concludes, "Max will never truly   
   be OK" because of his "disease." In reality, toxic chemicals are   
   impairing and distorting the growth of Max's brain. Psychiatric drugs   
   commonly drive suicidality in children and Max now leaves suicide   
   notes. Tragically, he has become so afraid of psychiatry that after   
   writing his last suicide note he sobbed, "Please don't send me to the   
   hospital."   
      
   From now on, Max, his family and his doctors will almost certainly   
   have to face an increasingly impossible dilemma common to children who   
   are prescribed multiple psychiatric drugs for a period of years. When   
   trying to withdraw these children from multiple psychiatric   
   medications, they almost certainly go through severe withdrawal   
   problems with extreme emotional instability and the risk of worsening   
   violence and suicidality. But if they are kept on drugs indefinitely,   
   their brain, mind and overall condition will further deteriorate.(1)   
      
   It can be relatively easy and safe to withdraw a child from one or   
   even two psychiatric drugs, especially if the parents are willing to   
   learn improved methods of discipline. But when multiple drugs are   
   involved, when the drugs have been taken for a long time, and when the   
   parents are deeply distressed or cannot agree on how to raise their   
   child, withdrawing the child from psychiatric medication can be   
   difficult and hazardous.   
      
   Newsweek makes clear that Max's parents have serious conflicts over   
   how to raise their son, but they have not pursued therapy, marriage   
   counseling or, apparently, not even parenting classes. In every case   
   of an out-of-control child I have seen in my psychiatric practice,   
   either the parents were unable to reach agreement on a consistent   
   approach to disciplining their child, or a single working mom was   
   trying to raise a young boy without the aid of a male adult in the   
   child's life.   
      
   In glimpses that we are given of this family, Max's father is somewhat   
   like his son; he doesn't deal well with feelings, and he thinks his   
   wife is much too permissive, calling her a "Caspar Milquetoast."   
   Reading between lines, it appears that Mom is left with the lion's   
   share of trying to discipline the desperate child, and perhaps has her   
   hands full with her husband who has a "temper" and is "inflexible."   
   While not have the opportunity to personally evaluate Max and his   
   family, we can speculate that Max might have trouble figuring out how   
   he is supposed to behave. Meanwhile, this family's story sounds like a   
   clarion call for a combination of therapy, marriage counseling and   
   parenting classes.   
      
   Newsweek declares "At least 800,000 children in the United States have   
   been diagnosed as bipolar, no doubt some of them wrongly," but then   
   immediately adopts the extremist psychiatric viewpoint, "The bipolar   
   brain is miswired ... " After warning in passing that the drugs   
   inflicted on these children can be useless and even dangerous,   
   Newsweek then justifies them by declaring, "Yet untreated bipolar   
   disorder can be disastrous; 10 percent of sufferers commit suicide."   
      
   Drug companies wrote this script and none of it is true.   
      
   First, all of these preadolescent children are being wrongly diagnosed   
   by conventional psychiatric standards. We have no evidence at all that   
   temper tantrums and other unruly behavior, however extreme, is a   
   precursor to being diagnosed with bipolar disorder as an adult.   
      
   Second, since there is no known connection between children diagnosed   
   bipolar growing into adults diagnosed bipolar, the data about a 10%   
   risk of suicide is misleading and irrelevant.   
      
   Third, there's no evidence whatsoever that individuals diagnosed   
   "bipolar" have a "miswired brain." There's not even any such evidence   
   for a biological flaw in adults who suffer from full-blown manic-like   
   episodes, let alone children whose parents and teachers cannot control   
   them. (1)   
      
   The concept that children have bipolar disorder and should be treated   
   with highly toxic adult psychiatric drugs is strictly a drug-company   
   marketing ploy. If it's true that 800,000 children have been   
   diagnosed, it has become an enormously successful marketing strategy   
   with tragic results for children and their families.   
      
   There's an even more sinister aspect to all this. There has been a   
   real increase in teenagers and young adults who display episodes of   
   manic-like symptoms such as insomnia, excessive energy, racing   
   thoughts, grandiose ideas about themselves, irrational and outrageous   
   behaviors, extreme irritability, paranoia, and psychosis. However, in   
   my three and one-half years of intensive psychiatric training in the   
   1960s, I saw only one case of a young person suffering from these   
   symptoms. In the following years through approximately 1990, I saw few   
   other cases. Yet nowadays I evaluate many teens and young adults with   
   manic-like symptoms in my medical and forensic practice. The reason   
   for the change? As I document in detail in Brain-Disabling Treatments   
   in Psychiatry (2008), antidepressant drugs, so freely given to   
   children and youth, cause a high rate of manic-like behaviors.   
      
   These changes -- diagnosing children bipolar and driving other   
   youngsters into states of drug-induced mania -- has not occurred by   
   chance. Joseph Biederman, one of those famous Boston psychiatrists,   
   has led the way in pinning the bipolar diagnosis on children who are   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)