The Making of Mental Patients --"TeenScreen" diagnoses high schoolers

The Making of Mental Patients
Inside TeenScreen
By SANDRA LUCAS

In October, 2004, after taking TeenScreen, a 10-minute computer test developed in the psychiatric department of Columbia University, 16-year-old Chelsea Rhoades of Indiana was told she had two mental health problems, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and social anxiety disorder. The diagnoses were based upon Chelsea's responses that she liked to help clean the house and didn't "party" much.

Chelsea is one of countless children who get labeled with fraudulent diagnoses every day. The difference in her case is that her parents, who were unaware that TeenScreen had infiltrated their daughter's school and had not given permission for the screening, reacted quickly. They filed a lawsuit against the officials of the high school who allowed the test to be administered and the TeenScreen program. In doing so, the Rhoades took a stand for all parents across the nation.

The unscientific nature of psychiatric labeling was admitted to by the American Psychiatric Association's own president, Steven Sharfstein, when he stated on June 27, 2005, during an interview on the Today Show, "We do not have a clean cut lab test "


http://www.counterpunch.com/lucas12302005.html

Last year they funded it in congress allegedly. But I could never find any reliable evidence that this was actually occuring. I suspected it was a rumor. The program started in Texas and is incredibly corrupt if what I've read is true.

This article is a year old. Any new stuff out there?

my friends about this. I just don't know if Counterpunch is considered reliable for a source.

I can say that it did pass through Congress. I checked that out. In fact, it had some supporters from both parties - one was Edward Kennedy. A Repuke actually tried to stop it, but was unsuccessful. It was Ron Paul, IIRC.

And I'd vote for him

I might consider him as well. I think he actually voted against giving Bush* authorization to use force against Iraq as well. I could be wrong about that. I do consider him one of the better Repukes, but I'm pretty liberal so most of the time I probably don't fall in line with the Libertarian platform. It really depends on the issue.

Which is something most of these people in Congress don't have. I like Boxer, and Murtha too. I'm not sure how he go financed but he is not a REPUBLICAN.

my youngest and thrown away the key. She's gifted/talented and a tad eccentric, pretty much OCD and did have the social anxiety order going on bigtime. But now that she's been out of high school for a couple of years, has moved away from home, has a nice job and a sweet boyfriend, she's just fine. Her quirks are what make her lovable. These people with all their labels just need to get a life and leave the kids alone. Everybody's crazy in high school.

:toast:

I have to share this with my college students! I teach IntroPsych and when I get to the section on Abnormal Psych they all self-diagnose themselves with *everything* - I get office visits and calls and emails from people who think they may have anxiety/depression/multiple-personality/eating disorder and most fall completely within the bounds of normal. :)

You've got to be kidding me?

needs some narrowing?

Anything to see drugs.

They used the kids as beta testers and now will have a large bill for the effort. Serves em right.

Only physicians, not computers, can diagnose such illnesses. This is really scary.

I heard they had scrapped this idea.

but it isn't anything I am going to spend a lot of time worrying about either. The article points out there is only one district in Missouri (my state) doing this and parents must consent.

They didn't used to kick kids out of school over Ritalin either. It's only a matter of time before the schools decide they have a right to test in order to keep discipline in the schools, just like they think they have a right to force kids to take ADD drugs. If you don't like the idea of every person having a pscyhiatric label, and believe me every person WILL, then the time to stop it is now.

And I seriously doubt that every person will have a psychiatric label one day. :eyes:

You know, I work in a school and we definitely don't believe we have a right to force kids to take ANY drugs. That is one of the craziest . . .

I better stop.

Peace.

They're treating people like animals. Bunch of blood sucking leaches is what these people are.

companies will soon be posting high double digit profits quarter after quarter after quarter . . . it's what you get when you let the industries themselves write the laws and regulations that govern them and the programs they're interested in (e.g. TeenScreen, Medicare Part D, etc.) . . . the whole scam is nothing short of criminal . . .

in this (and every other) instance, "follow the money" is the way to determine what's really happening . . .

screening device. It takes professionals, trained in the field a lot longer than that. Instanst diagnosis=instant profits for Big Pharma.

Geezus, this is terrible for people who have real needs. It trivializes the whole situation.

Thank you, Big Pharma.

Medicating Aliah
Mother Jones - May/June 2005 Issue

...one day, psychologists from the University of Texas (UT) visited the school to conduct a mental health screening for sixth- and seventh-grade girls, and Aliah's life took a dramatic turn.... The Gleasons reluctantly agreed to have Aliah see a UT consulting psychiatrist. She concluded Aliah was suicidal but did not hospitalize her, referring her instead to an emergency clinic for further evaluation. Six weeks later, in January 2004, a child-protection worker went to Aliah's school, interviewed her, then summoned Calvin Gleason to the school and told him to take Aliah to Austin State Hospital, a state mental facility. He refused, and after a heated conversation, she placed Aliah in emergency custody and had a police officer drive her to the hospital.

The Gleasons would not be allowed to see or even speak to their daughter for the next five months, and Aliah would spend a total of nine months in a state psychiatric hospital and residential treatment facilities. While in the hospital, she was placed in restraints more than 26 times and medicated—against her will and without her parents' consent—with at least 12 different psychiatric drugs, many of them simultaneously.

On her second day at the state hospital, Aliah says she was told to take a pill to "help my mood swings." She refused and hid under her bed. She says staff members pulled her out by her legs, then told her if she took her medication, she'd be able to go home sooner. She took it. On another occasion, she "cheeked" a pill and later tossed it into the garbage. She says that after staff members found it, five of them came to her room, one holding a needle. "I started struggling, and they held my head down and shot me in the butt," she says. "Then they left and I lay in my bed crying."

What, if anything, was wrong with Aliah remains cloudy. Court documents and medical records indicate that she would say she was suicidal or that her father beat her, and then she would recant. (Her attorney attributes such statements to the high dosages of psychotropic drugs she was forcibly put on.) Her clinical diagnosis was just as changeable. During two months at Austin State Hospital, Aliah was diagnosed with "depressive disorder not otherwise specified," "mood disorder not otherwise specified with psychotic features," and "major depression with psychotic features." In addition to the antidepressants Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro, and Desyrel, as well as Ativan, an antianxiety drug, Aliah was given two newer drugs known as "atypical antipsychotics"—Geodon and Abilify—plus an older antipsychotic, Haldol. She was also given the anticonvulsants Trileptal and Depakote—though she was not suffering from a seizure disorder—and Cogentin, an anti-Parkinson's drug also used to control the side effects of antipsychotic drugs. At the time of her transfer to a residential facility, she was on five different medications, and once there, she was put on still another atypical—Risperdal.

One way drug companies have worked to influence prescribing practices of these public institutions is by funding the implementation of guidelines, or algorithms, that spell out which drugs should be used for different psychiatric conditions, much as other algorithms guide the treatment of diabetes or heart disease. The effort began in the mid-1990s with the creation of TMAP—the Texas Medication Algorithm Project. Put simply, the algorithm called for the newest, most expensive medications to be used first in the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression in adults. Subsequently, the state began developing CMAP, a children's algorithm that is not yet codified by the state legislature. At least nine states have since adopted guidelines similar to TMAP. One such state, Pennsylvania, has been sued by two of its own investigators who claim they were fired after exposing industry's undue influence over state prescribing practices and the resulting inappropriate medicating of patients, particularly children. <snip>

At a time when ethical questions are dogging the pharmaceutical industry and algorithm programs in Texas and Pennsylvania, President Bush's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health has lauded TMAP as a "model program" and called for the expanded use of screening programs like the one at Aliah Gleason's middle school. The question now is whose interests do these programs really serve?

They sound like condemned prisoners to me

Right.

Indy Op, what would Winnicott say about these guys?

Whether they’re aware of it or not.

Maybe historically significant OCD-ers wrote a thousand symphonies, ten thousand pages of poetry, painted thousands of paintings and wrote many novels and found other ways to tame their obsessions/compulsions or channel them in to something beautiful or complex without the aid of drugs that cause pseudo-parkinsonism.


Edited to add: there's always shock therapy which has made a BIG come-back. Tell me that's not torture.

Do you have references for this?

I have seen patients in the hospital being given shock.I have seen it being given on outpatients too.They go in for treatment for half a day go home at night.The psych indusatry is not as"modern" or nice as you think.I have been on the inside. Look to the ex patient survivors movements like On Our Own,and Mindfreedom.

who have managed and who would like to see other families manage, too. :)

supervisor in for campaigning for Bush using school property. They (my supervisor and his helpers) printed out Christian Coalition flyers using pulicly funded school money during the 2004 campaign. They then proceeded to pass them out on campus. When I tried to turn them in for it, I was told to "get mental help." Happens every day. You can take it to the bank that it's true.

I remember that. What a crock.

No thank you. This reminds me of that forced mental health screening program that a lot of people were up in arms about last year.

Psychologist, author and director of Texans for Safe Education, John Breeding, doesn't mince words, "TeenScreen is nothing more than a government sponsored marketing tool created to serve the interests of the corporate pharmaceutical industry and psychiatrists. It is a shame and a disgrace that the United States is putting millions of children on psychiatric drugs today. This is obviously not enough to satisfy the insatiable greed of big pharma. We must stop TeenScreen and protect our children from more deadly poisoning."

TeenScreen is the brainchild of psychiatrist David Shaffer of Columbia University. Shaffer is a paid consultant for pharmaceutical companies Hoffman la Roche, Wyeth, and GlaxoSmithKline.

Once they screen you they throw you out of school, no way to get a job... Sick.

Hey, this all sounds familiar, but didn't they use to wait until you'd something before they labeled you as crazy? Or is this just separating out the workers in a different way then the factory model I was raised with?

And I think it is obscene that anyone is trying to pass off a 14 question computer questionnaire as anything resembling a valid diagnostic tool for mental disorders. No professional would diagnose a person without a thorough interview with the patient. Leaving "diagnosis" in the hands of non-professionals armed with this paltry questionnaire is a grave disservice to the students. It practically guarantees that most of them will be found to have one or more disorders.

"TeenScreen is nothing more than a government sponsored marketing tool created to serve the interests of the corporate pharmaceutical industry and psychiatrists.

And ironically, they might just be shooting themselves in the foot with that move. The military generally will not accept recruits who have "required behavior altering drugs" during their childhood. Acccordingly, children and teens who take stimulants, mood stabilizers, antidepressants and anxilyotics will likely be ineligible for military service. (Note to parents on DU: if you really don't want your kid to be drafted should a draft be implemented, get them on a course of psychotropic meds.)

This whole idea reeks of mind control of the middle-class and poor. Naturally the rich, who attend private schools, will be exempt.

TEENSCREEN AND THE CREATED CRISIS
By Lynn Stuter
December 24, 2005

NewsWithViews.com

A spate of articles have appeared recently in newspapers across the country
focusing on youth suicide. Included in the majority of those articles is mention
of TeenScreen, a program emanating from Columbia University. TeenScreen brags,
on their website, of their presence in all but a few of the fifty states
(Alabama, Kansas, Maryland, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming).


http://newswithviews.com/Stuter/stuter75.htm

http://www.tnvoices.org/teenscreen.htm
http://www.unknownnews.net/040712a-upits.html
http://www.mindfreedom.org/mindfreedom/bush_psychiatry.shtml

It's not just for teens people.

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7454/1458