Mental Health and Psychotropic Drugs

(this beginning is a bit too open, it doesn 't have a lead up to the point) In the last thirty years, the number of patients diagnosed with depression has doubled. (doubled from what? What percentage) The sharp increase in these diagnoses is due to the fact that the medical community has blurred the distinction between everyday unhappiness and clinical depression. (what percentage or numbers are you getting the 40% from?) The use of Psychotropic medication in depressed patients has increased in the United States by more than 40 percent over the last decade.(you have a website but what is the website for?) (http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/ovrc/retrieve.do?subjectParam=Local) The bulk of the increase can be accounted for by the aggressive use of SSRI’s (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) in patients. It is the class of drugs that includes Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil. The question is: Are more Americans clinically depressed now than in the past, or has medical science started to treat the far more common experience of “everyday unhappiness” is this a quote from someone or from you? with medication, thereby increasing the number of drug prescriptions? A Psychoactive drug or Psychotropic substance is a chemical substance that acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it alters brain functions, resulting in perception, mood, consciousness, and behavior. These drugs may be used recreationally to purposefully alter one’s consciousness, as entheogens for ritual or spiritual purposes, as a tool for studying or augmenting the mind or therapeutically as medication. (www.Wikipedia.org ). (Is this whole paragraph a quote? If so, it needs to be centered and in quotation marks.) For example: On January 22,2008, acclaimed Australian actor, Heath Ledger, died from an accidental overdose of six types of prescribed painkillers and sedatives. Ellen Borakone, spokesperson for the New York Medical Examiner’s office, said the cause of death was “acute intoxication by combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam [Valium], temazepam [Restoril], alprazolam [Xanax] and doxylamine. Valium, Restoril and Xanax are benzodiazepines or tranquilizers/sedatives. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) launched an investigation into how Mr. Ledger acquired the prescription drugs that killed him. (Why did you use this example? The usage of this example is in a incorrect location of the essay)
A year earlier, on February 5, Anna Nicole Smith died of an accidental drug overdose in Hollywood, Florida. She was taking 11 prescribed drugs, including tranquilizers, Valium, Ativan and Klonopinns, the sedative Chloral Hydrate and the anticonvulsant Topomax. Smith’s California Psychiatrist, Khristine E. Eroshevich had prescribed the cocktail of drugs. The DEA is also investigating this death. (http://www.cchr.org ) WHEN PRESCRIBING PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS BECOME CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE: CASES AND CONVICTIONS. A PUBLIC INTERST REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS. BY CITIZENS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL FEBRUARY 8, 2008 (is this a quote? If so, it needs to be in lower case, in quotation marks and from who) These are tragic deaths that could have been avoided, if Psychiatrist and the medical community would take the time and really diagnose their patients with concern and not just rush to write a prescription for these drugs, all because someone says they are unhappy with their life. Psychiatrist has a hard job trying to distinguish between who is real and who is not. Yes, there are people who do need these drugs to function on a daily basis, but there are people who go to their doctor and express how they are feeling and depending on what the person say they come out of the office with a prescription for Prozac or something that is even more powerful. (You should of started this as paragraph 3, then the one of Heath and Anna afterwards.) These mind altering drugs only give the illusion that upon taking these drugs you are happy and everything is good in the world. (What mind altering drugs? Acid? Extacy? Weed? Antidepressant?) The drugs give a sense of false hope. People become addictive to these drugs and so many people are dying from an accidental overdose of taking so many pills at the same time. (This should be used as a conclusion) Psychoactive drugs successfully treat most mental illnesses. There are people who are suffering from a mental disease known as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD ), which torments its victims with clouds of horrific anxieties. Mental illness is too broadly too defined. This is where mental health community is having a big problem. They don’t want to over medicate and then again under medicate a patient. Here is a successful story about James: (Who is James?) By the time he reached his early thirties, James was a promising scientist who had all the makings of an academic star. He had earned a stream of fellowships and was on the path to tenure at one of Boston’s preeminent universities. But James had a problem: he dreaded speaking in public. Academic conferences terrified him, so he avoided them whenever possible. He rarely interacted with colleagues. As a result, his idea didn’t circulate and his career stalled. In frustration, James sought help from a Psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with a Mental Disorder known as “ social phobia “ and prescribed a well-known antidepressant effective in the treatment of extreme inhibition. The medication alleviated his severe anxiety and enabled him to do the things he previously could not do. His work gained public recognition, and he has subsequently risen to the top of his profession. In recent years, James’s story has become increasingly common. Using an ever-expanding arsenal of neurochemical drugs, physicians now treat variants of mood and temperament that previous generations viewed as an inescapable part of life. In an earlier era, James’s fears might have forced him to change professions. Today, the exceptionally shy and the overly anxious, the hyperactive and the chronically unhappy can seek relief from their suffering through medical intervention. And the parameters of what constitutes a “ mental disorder” have swelled. An estimated 22 million Americans currently take Psychotropic medications-most for relatively mild conditions. (http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/ovrc/retrieve.do?subjectParam=Local ) 6/25/2008. There are a lot of people who are afraid to speak in public. Only half of those with severe disorders receive adequate treatment. Clinicians and researchers disagree over what the priorities of the field should be and whom they should count as mentally ill. Are we treating normal behavior at the expense of the truly disturbed? Can we adequately distinguish illness from idiosyncrasy, disease from discontent? And are we allowing pharmaceutical companies and insurers to define the boundary between mental illness and just plain normal health? Most practicing Psychologists think that psychotropic medications can be an effective addition to Psychotherapy, a recent study indicates. All of the respondents said they see many clients taking Psychotropic-approximately one in three-and they expect that the number will continue to increase. Participating psychologists expect that these numbers will increase: 62 percent think that medication will play a greater role in treating mental health disorders over the next three to five years. Medication can be a useful tool.(medication for what?) Most of the survey respondents-99 percent-believe that Psychotropic drugs can play a positive role in treating mental health disorders. (What survey?) In the survey, 91 percent of respondents say that Psychotropic drugs “often are an effective adjunct to psychotherapy. ( www.apa.org/monitor/Jun06/psychotropic.html ). APA Monitor article ( June 2006 ). One way that science establishes a link between clinical depression and everyday unhappiness is through a diagnostic instrument called the DSM. First published in 1952 and now in its fifth edition, the DSM ( Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ) is the only tool in the psychiatric field. It is a classification scheme for the entire range of human mental pathology. (this ending paragraph and the next, you need to reposition and have a better startup on this DSM info) The DSM includes 16 major diagnostic classes ( e.g., mood disorders, anxiety disorders, substance-abuse disorders ), and these categories are divided up again and again in accordance with certain signs and symptoms. The original purpose of the DSM was to satisfy the psychiatric profession’s need for statistical and epidemiological data. But by establishing a relationship between clinical depression and everyday unhappiness when no such relationship existed before, the DSM has led inexorably to a liberal use of psychotropic medication. Before the development of the DSM, feelings of unhappiness were not considered related to any of the authentic disease states that existed in medical science, such as depression or schizophrenia. Even though clinical depression had an official status in medical science, everyday sadness did not. The DSM made it possible to recognize everyday unhappiness by creating large categories of mental illness and then ever-increasing subcategories, replete with subtypes and specifiers. For example, “ Major depression “ was broken down into a host of symptoms of everyday unhappiness like pessimism, hopelessness, and despair. With the creation of the DSM, everyday unhappiness suddenly gained a fixed position in the medical community, if only as a subcategory of a subcategory of a major mental illness. (http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/ovcr/retrieve.do?subjectParam=Local). According to this article written by Ronald W. Dworkin a practicing physician and an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a public organization. Physicians Are Prescribing Powerful Psychotropic Drugs for Everyday Unhappiness. He is basically saying that physicians, psychiatrist and other mental health professionals are losing the battle against overly prescribing powerful drugs to people who do not have mental disorders and that they are just unhappy for whatever the reason. (what was his quotations?) Not only are celebrities using these drugs but non-celebrities are using these drugs. There is an article called WHEN PRESCRIBING PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS BECOMES CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE: CASES AND CONVICTIONS. (is this a quotation or your quotation. Needs to be marked correctly) This article has a list of Lawful and Unlawful Prescribing of Psychotropic Drugs That Resulted in Death, it also has Medical Licensing Board Investigations into the deaths of people who have died because of negligence and it has a Summary and Recommendations of what should be done if a physician is prescribing and the result is death to someone who is taking these drugs.
There is no ending or conclusion. References:
Physicians Are Prescribing Powerful Psychotropic Drugs for Everyday Unhappiness
Ronald W. Dworkin. At Issue: Treating the Mentally Ill. Ed. Kyla Stinnett. San Diego: Greenhaven Press 2004. “ The Medicalization of Unhappiness “ Public Interest, summer 2001. Copyright 2001 by Public Interest. Reproduced by permission of the publisher and the author. http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/ovrc/retrieve.do?subjectParam=Local WHEN PRESCRIBING PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS BECOME CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE:
CASES AND CONVICTIONS. A PUBLIC INTEREST REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS. BY CITIZENS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL. FEBRUARY 8, 2008.
Mental Illness Is Too Broadly Defined. Ashley Pettus. Current Controversies: Mental Health. Ed. Ann Quigley. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/ovrc/retriev.do?subjectParam=Local Psychoactive Drugs Successfully Treat Most Mental Illnesses. Judith Hooper. Current Controversies: Mental Health. Ed. Jennifer A. Hurley. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999.
Judith Hooper is a writer for time Magazine. http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/ovrc/retrieve.do?subjectParam=Local Psychotropic or Psychoactive drugs. www.wikipedia.org
APA Monitor article ( June 2006 ). www.apa.org/monitor/Jun06/psychtropic.html

References: CASES AND CONVICTIONS.    A PUBLIC INTEREST REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS.  BY CITIZENS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL.  FEBRUARY 8, 2008. Mental Illness Is Too Broadly Defined.  Ashley Pettus.  Current Controversies: Mental Health.  Ed. Ann Quigley.  Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007.  http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/ovrc/retriev.do?subjectParam=Local Psychoactive Drugs Successfully Treat Most Mental Illnesses.  Judith Hooper.  Current Controversies: Mental Health.  Ed.  Jennifer A. Hurley.  San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999.