Antidepressants for children - lowering risks or destroying the psyche?
Hundreds of types of antidepressants have come to the aid of a man. Years pass, and the need for these drugs is still questionable. Recent advances in psychology provide information on how antidepressants affect the psyche of an adult and a child?
Depression, a mental illness described by Hippocrates, has become the plague of our time. Relentless statistics indicate that if in the 40s of the XX century, despite all the difficulties and the world war, the frequency of depression was only 2.5-3% of the total population, then in the peaceful 60s this number increased to 10 –12% and increases every year.
We began the 21st century with threatening numbers: before puberty (12-13 years old), about 5% of children suffer from depression, and already after its passage and in adulthood, depression becomes a reality for 20-40% of people.
What is depression?
Mental disorder, which is characterized by an extremely depressed mood up to a complete inability to experience joy, loss of interest in any activity, motor retardation, loss of strength.
Additional criteria may include headaches, insomnia or oversleeping, loss of appetite, pessimism, and even suicidal thoughts.
For a diagnosis to be made, persistent symptoms must be present for at least two weeks.
Childhood depression is almost indistinguishable from adult depression and is diagnosed based on symptoms such as loss of appetite, sleep disturbances, sudden problems with academic performance and communication, withdrawal, and aggression.
Among the reasons for the development of depression are standardly distinguished:
- low levels of the hormones serotonin and dopamine;
- psychological stress as a result of loss;
- side effects of drugs;
- concomitant disease.
However, in more than a third of cases, the onset of depression is viewed as "arising from within the psyche" and not having obvious causes.
Hundreds of types of antidepressants have come to the aid of a man. Years pass, and the need for these drugs is still questionable. In this article, we will look at the effect of antidepressants on the psyche of an adult and a child from the standpoint of the latest advances in psychology.
Sick or healthy. where is the border?
Prescribing antidepressants occurs only if the specialist has serious concerns about the mental health of his patient. There are many tables and scales for assessing the state of the psyche of an adult and a child, but they are so generalized and vague that, by and large, the diagnostician himself makes the final conclusions.
The most controversial point in any of these scales is the indicator taken as the norm. What is the norm, if we proceed from the principle that all people are different? Even if physiological norms can vary significantly, how can the mental norm be determined?
In the opinion of an active and mobile teacher with a skin vector, a silent unsociable child who sits alone in the corner during the break and hovers in the clouds for the whole lesson obviously looks inhibited. The suspicion is strengthened when, for each question asked, the child begins to ask again: "Oh, me?" It is in this state and with suspicion of mental retardation that the child often falls into the hands of a specialist.
There are also reverse situations when a calm and unhurried psychiatrist with an anal vector, examining an overly mobile and active baby who is unable to sit still for a minute, concentrate on one object or thought for a long time, regards his behavior as inadequate and diagnoses him with “hyperactivity”.
The same happens in the situation of prescribing antidepressants. Those child psychologists and psychiatrists who, in addition to common truths, try to take into account the individual characteristics of each child, inevitably face an insoluble question - where are the boundaries of normal behavior.
When in doubt about the need to prescribe antidepressants, the question, unfortunately, is often decided in favor of prescribing. "Just in case", antidepressants for children are prescribed out of the slightest fear for the life and health of a trusted child.
However, even under the constant control of prescriptions and regulations, fearing the claims of parents and teachers, the thinking specialist is constantly looking for the latest data in order to get more tools for analysis, diagnosis and treatment prescription.
Some more facts
According to scientific evidence, the chemical effect of antidepressants is aimed at increasing the level of the so-called "happiness hormones", serotonin and dopamine, the lack of activity of which is considered the main cause of depression.
However, along with this, from 40 to 60% of patients are resistant, that is, immune to the first antidepressant. And another third - and to the second.
There is such a concept as "antidepressant threshold", which is individual, in this regard, the initial dose of the drug can be increased several times to achieve the effect. The effect itself or its absence is assessed no earlier than 2 weeks after the start of treatment. The course of treatment can last from several months to several years and even be extended to establish a stable effect.
Antidepressants of certain chemical groups are approved for use in children. Most from 12 years old, some from 6 years old.
80% of antidepressants are prescribed by general practitioners in Europe and the United States; this practice is still developing in the post-Soviet space. Psychotropic drugs are on a par with cold medicines.
At the same time, it is known that some antidepressants, in addition to acting on serotonin and dopamine receptors, also act on opioid receptors of nerve endings, and this is already a narcotic effect. Dependence develops, sensitivity to the drug decreases, which means that in order to achieve the effect, it is necessary to increase the dose.
With an abrupt termination of treatment, withdrawal syndrome occurs, that is, the rapid development of those symptoms against which treatment was directed. Not to mention the possibility of the development of "serotonin syndrome" when taking drugs of different pharmacological groups.
But an even greater danger in taking antidepressants is inherent for the psyche of the patient, and especially the child.
What are the risks of using antidepressants? system-vector psychology view
Antidepressants increase the risk of suicide. This is even indicated in the instructions for these drugs. For this reason, enhanced control over the patient is recommended, that is, constant (preferably round-the-clock) observation, the absence of sharp cutting and stabbing objects in his room, locked windows and other precautions.
Why is this happening? Let's figure it out.
At the training "System-vector psychology" we learn the following. Each person has innate properties, desires that require their fulfillment. We live according to the principle of pleasure. Filling desires brings a feeling of contentment, pleasure, joy and happiness from life, non-fulfillment - lack and suffering.
Each vector has its own properties and desires. If we take it simplistically (not taking into account the bundles of vectors and the level of their development), the dermal person strives for success in his career, the anal person strives for the honor and respect of colleagues, wants to become a professional, the visual person likes to shine on stage and it is important to love someone, and so on. Read more about the properties and desires of each vector here.
Accordingly, the lack of pleasure for each of the vectors is expressed and felt differently. However, not all of these conditions can be called depression. For one simple reason. When a skin man is deprived of profit, his suffering is easily removed with a new portion of money. When an anal person gets upset because he is not appreciated, his condition is easily removed by recognition from colleagues. And even when a visual person leaves his beloved and plunges into heavy emotional swings, his pain passes along with new love.
Real depression as a complete absence of a sense of joy and pleasure from life for no apparent reason occurs only in sound people.
Their suffering is not removed either by buying a new car, or getting a new position, or a new love, an oppressive feeling sometimes accompanies them all their lives. Moreover, for the new generation of sound people, it has become much younger. If earlier a person at the end of his life could feel its emptiness and ask a question about the meaning of everything that was happening, today such a question arises among very young adolescents and even young children.
Surely you have met such self-absorbed children and adolescents with surprisingly adult and intelligent eyes? These are they, little sound people. It is they who can actually go to suicide, pushed by the same feeling of inner deafness and suffering that does not pass from receiving material values.
The use of antidepressants for them is a one-way path. The path of not realizing, not filling your desires, not getting pleasure from life, but the path of relieving inner pain by alleviating suffering, the path of underdevelopment and the feeling of constant emptiness in this life.
Why do we say that the use of antidepressants is especially detrimental to the psyche of a sound child, and not an adult? Because up to 12-15 years (before the passage of puberty), vector properties develop. A skin person develops and turns from a stingy and plushkin into a high-class engineer, a visual person - from a hysterical person to a person who loves people and the world of a person, but during this time the sound needs to develop the ability to inner concentration, verbalization of its inner feelings, concentration of thought. If these skills are not developed during this period, then they will never develop, and the maximum that we will get is a comfortable society, quiet, but never known happiness, not fulfilling his natural role as a person. And at worst - a suicidal person delayed in time.
Open door of the subconscious
Thus, the solution to the problem of depression lies in the field of not medication, but psychological, which means that parents realize the abilities, capabilities and properties of their child and develop him in accordance with them. And for adults - the correct implementation of their sound properties in society.
On the basis of the training "System-vector psychology", both become possible without the use of any additional means. And even more so antidepressants.
You can get acquainted with this issue in more depth in the library of the portal, as well as at the training "System-vector psychology" by Yuri Burlan.
