Developmental Psychology

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Psychiatrists think that children need to be on medication in order to be able to be a candidate for treatment. Psychiatrists think that upping the medication is the best thing. There are so many side effects for children, but psychiatrists think that we need to look at the positive side effects and not the negatives. Psychiatrists now think that we need to catch the disorder before the child develops the symptoms and medicate it before the children progress to full bipolar disorder.

Researchers who advocate the use of psychiatric medications receive major support from industry. Drug industry funding and drug industry influence is very significant in our culture. There is still a conflict of interest. The public thinks that the results could possibly be biased. Medications have a completely different impact on children as opposed to adults. The brain scan allowed doctors to see which parts of the brain lit up and then they were able to treat that part of the brain based on the color and the type of drug that could influence that part of the brain. I think that BrainMatters is great, allowing doctors to see the blood flow and treat patients based on their brain patterns. Doctors are able to see brain patterns much earlier now although it is still a research tool. Now, there are self-help books, diagnostic centers, websites, and nutritional regimes trying to help parents with their children.

In learning about the brain we are still young. In our culture every child who has a disorder is a case, and every case is a model from which to find cures to childhood disorders. Psychiatrists are now recommending meditation as a treatment option. Some children want to be off medication so bad that they would rather resist their symptoms and try to cope in hopes to obtain control of them. In our culture some physicians are now trying to lower children’s medications as opposed to prescribing more. Some parents believe that the increase in dose of medications is helping their child, while others feel that it is harming their child. This will continue to be the ongoing debate because each child is different and will react differently to each drug.