Over time, I become very disenchanted with the overall approach we took at that hospital. In the end, I think we did more slightly more good than harm. But when the insurance arrangements collapsed in the early nineties with the emergence of HMO's and funding decreased for the treatment of the most poor and vulnerable, I was pretty happy to move on to playing music full-time for a couple of years.
But it was in this program that one can see great possibility for abuse: namely, early and thorough control of a child's behavior through drugs. And with no informed consent. After all, the parents are hardly in a position to object, and no one in the system was going to either. None of these drugs were approved for these uses (of this I am pretty sure, but not completely so), and the many side effects would certainly set the child up for future ridicule: constipation, slurring of speech, awkward movements, glazed expression, etc.
Keep in mind that this was more than fifteen years ago. You would think that long term studies on the safety of anti-psychotics (haldol, risperdol, clozaril) or anti-depressants (imipramine, prozac, and so on) would have been published. You would be wrong.
Now we have another vast, underserved, and traumatized population- returning veterans- who will be desperate for treatment, who will not receive the services, training, and economic support that greatly lessens the strain of emotional distress, and who will instead be treated as damaged brains and be subject to a largely unsupervised drug regimen.
Sure, some drugs help. But unless there is a wide and comprehensive range of services, our vets, like the poor and abused children I worked with years ago, will be presented a false choice.
It will seem as if beta-blockers and anti-depressants are the only options. And that will be because we have, once again, failed to address our societal problems with societal solutions.
But it was in this program that one can see great possibility for abuse: namely, early and thorough control of a child's behavior through drugs. And with no informed consent. After all, the parents are hardly in a position to object, and no one in the system was going to either. None of these drugs were approved for these uses (of this I am pretty sure, but not completely so), and the many side effects would certainly set the child up for future ridicule: constipation, slurring of speech, awkward movements, glazed expression, etc.
Keep in mind that this was more than fifteen years ago. You would think that long term studies on the safety of anti-psychotics (haldol, risperdol, clozaril) or anti-depressants (imipramine, prozac, and so on) would have been published. You would be wrong.
Now we have another vast, underserved, and traumatized population- returning veterans- who will be desperate for treatment, who will not receive the services, training, and economic support that greatly lessens the strain of emotional distress, and who will instead be treated as damaged brains and be subject to a largely unsupervised drug regimen.
Sure, some drugs help. But unless there is a wide and comprehensive range of services, our vets, like the poor and abused children I worked with years ago, will be presented a false choice.
It will seem as if beta-blockers and anti-depressants are the only options. And that will be because we have, once again, failed to address our societal problems with societal solutions.
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