The Low-Down on Depression and Mental Illness

Featured this week, an article by Beverly Eakman:

http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/5190

The Low-Down on Depression and Mental Illness
Written by Beverly K. Eakman
Thursday, 06 August 2009 01:20

Fox News just informed viewers that 27 million Americans are being treated for depression. The Washington Times ran a three-part series this week on the tsunami of mental illness in New Orleans four years after Hurricane Katrina, mostly depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A rash of additional articles has appeared nationwide on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), including one from last Sunday’s (August 2) Washington Times “Pure suffering for OCD Patients,” by Cheryl Weinstein. All news sources, regardless of political persuasion, lend the aura of medical legitimacy to these phenomena.

But just three years ago, we were hearing a vastly different story: “Cheer up: U.S. not so depressed,” a 2006 Washington Times headline proclaimed, the gist being that reports of epidemic levels of clinical depression were greatly exaggerated — and possibly bogus, along with statistics on alcoholism and anxiety.

The problem — and nearly every news source and medical professional acknowledges it — is that mental illnesses, especially depression, PTSD and OCD, are difficult, if not impossible, to diagnose or quantify. There is no X-ray, blood test, DNA or other chemical analysis that nails these as bona fide sicknesses, such as one might seek, say, for a brain injury or diabetes. And while there is little question that people do suffer from acute, long-term sadness, stress and compulsive behaviors, there exists no direct, medical proof for the notion of biologically-based brain disorders, contrary to the claims of pharmaceutical companies and mental-health advocacy groups like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

What that means for average citizens is that there is no magic bullet, no medication, to “cure” what are essentially human phenomena, not medical conditions.

NAMI, the National Association of Mental Health, and the American Psychological Association, all of which receive federal and state dollars via grants and other subsidies, pump out one press release after another touting genetic and biological mental illnesses as well as “medicalized” mental disorders brought on by life events. But as most medicated individuals and their families eventually discover, affected sufferers do not seem to get better on psychotropic drugs and therapies.

Dr. Peter Breggin, one of the more outspoken medical authors addressing the issue of mental health treatments, especially psychotropic medications, describes antidepressants, tranquilizers and even some antipsychotics as essentially “brain-blunters,” meaning that they “dull” the emotions so that the patient doesn’t feel them as intensely as before, depending on the dosage. Otherwise, psychiatric drugs do little, if anything — except produce ghastly side-effects.

Stimulants like Ritalin may jolt the brain, say after a stroke, to “wake it up” a bit, but for strictly psychiatric uses, Ritalin is called a stimulant in adults and a tranquilizer in children — rather difficult to reconcile in an identical drug.

Now that black box warnings are appearing on one antidepressant after another, due to high-profile deaths among children and violent rampages by teens — beginning with the carnage in Columbine, Colorado — it would seem that the mainstream media, Congress and the medical industry in general would rethink their support for psychiatric labels, mental health screening, psychotropic substances and the mental health industry.

In Dolton, Illinois, for example, 6-year-old Kierra Garner was found dead in her home in January 2006. Nine weeks later, toxicology reports surfaced, pointing to intoxication from the drug amitriptyline, commonly used to “treat” manic depression or bipolar disorder, two supposedly biologically-based mental illnesses. In a 6-year-old! A pharmacist told the local NBC affiliate that the drug is not meant for children and would likely prove to be fatal in any dose if given to a child that age. Yet, the medication was prescribed.

Last April, Gabriel Myers, age 7, died by suicide in his South Florida foster home, hanging himself on an extendable shower hose. According to staff writer Kris Hundley of the St. Petersburg Times (May 8), the little boy was taking two powerful psychiatric drugs at the time of his death — Vyvanse, an ADHD drug, and Symbyax, a combination of the antipsychotic Zyprexa and the antidepressant Prozac, neither of which had been approved by his parent or a judge, as required by state law — when he killed himself. Symbyax carries a "black box" warning that it might lead to suicidal behavior among children and adolescents, especially when first prescribed. Documents made public in connection with a state investigation into Gabriel's death show that foster care workers repeatedly ignored the necessity of obtaining consent for psychotropic medications in a child under the state's care — apparently not a rare occurrence.

The media has historically been the public’s first line of defense against wrongheaded notions and policies. But today, with 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at educational facilities about to be screened for mental illnesses under the New Freedom Initiative (funded by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004), using the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as a guide, most media services have dropped the ball. Most DSM labels cannot be verified through any medical test, yet impending government-subsidized universal health care proposals includes all aspects of mental health in lawmakers’ plans.

The point is that psychiatric therapies and drugs do not have good track records, especially in the long term. Some initially claim they feel better, but that may well be the power of suggestion inasmuch as it doesn’t appear to last long. The news article by Weinstein on post-Katrina mental health in New Orleans inadvertently confirms the point: Sufferers who had been treated and were on medication said they were no better, just as the infamous killers of their classmates and the offspring of “sick” mothers like Houston’s Andrea Yates apparently did not fare well on their prescribed, psychotropic “cocktails.”

What used to be approached as a personal or character issue, or even a religious concern, is now being “medicalized” without basis. What happens to a person in response to life events, even tragic ones, does not lend itself to a medical diagnosis. People can, of course, choose to live differently; to move elsewhere; to tackle problems such as anger, resentment and frustration squarely; to jettison unwarranted fixations on beauty, sex or even counterproductive “checking” and “hoarding” behaviors (as per OCD)…or they can succumb to a permanent condition of sadness and stress. In most cases, it comes down to a personal decision, one that a trusted friend or clergyman might be able to influence.

Unfortunately, the media, lawmakers and the medical profession have jettisoned principles once espoused in America through its religious institutions and families. They have instead created a new “religion” called Psychiatry — a state-sponsored religion complete with bible, doctrine and tax-supported institutions.

The United States — indeed the free world — now serves as hosts to hundreds of mental health advocacy and “behavioral science” institutions (especially those within university settings), all of which sup at the public trough. The “silent victims” are the troubled and upset individuals themselves — many of whom may have good reason to be upset and troubled. What’s different today is that they no longer have a legitimate advocate based in constitutionally recognized right of self-determination or religious choice.

Beverly K. Eakman is a former speechwriter for the heads of two federal agencies, a sought-after lecturer and the author of four books (including the best-selling award-winner, Cloning of the American Mind: Eradicating Morality Through Education) on education policy, mental-health and illicit data-trafficking. Her latest book is Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms Are Creating a Nation of Sitting Ducks. She can be reached through her web site: www.BeverlyE.com.