Experts call for mental illness screening for children

[Mayfly]

Experts call for mental illness screening for children
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/1...8AR1E820121128

Leading mental health experts are calling for school children to be screened for risk of mental illnesses such as depression and have devised a test that reliably identifies those at high risk.
The test can be done on a computer and could be used to alert doctors and psychologists to intervene early ...

. . . testing children at school age could help health authorities get in early and offer therapy to prevent people descending into more serious, hard to treat conditions.

What do they think we are? Battery chickens???

Perhaps one day we'll have some kind of data link to a big computer that will ensure we all behave absolutely perfectly.

[Elaine Kirk]

.
How strange that they should claim to be capable of predicting future mental illness in those whose minds are emotionally and intellectually immature.
The subjects of these tests and interventions are at present innocent children finding their way in the world and I think the question has to be asked....
Will intervening in a child's natural emotional development result in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy seeking alternative employment

[Elaine Kirk]

Oh Reuters have quoted another expert with common sense

But other mental health experts advised caution.
"Early screening in the service of early intervention to try to prevent later mental health problems undoubtedly has allure," said Felicity Callard of London's Institute of Psychiatry.
"But to grow up with the knowledge that you are 'at high risk' of future mental health problems can affect the very way in which you grow up - and thereby ... embed a sense that you are mentally vulnerable, with potentially untoward consequences."

.

[Polly]

For me there are Two problems with this idea

1 If you go looking for mental illness, instability, or fragility you WILL find it

The Rosenhan experiment illustrated this.

2 If you know you are being assessed for an illness, it's more or less guaranteed you will find yourself having some of the symptoms whether you have the disease or not, most humans are suggestible to some degree.


And lets not forget that it benefits the mental health industry if more people can be diagnosed as needing 'help' of some kind.

I can't help wondering how many people with depression are suffering from the effects of continually having to deal with the psychotic nature of our schools as children, and then the psychotic way those in government treat us?

[LovingHomeEd]

Originally Posted by Polly

For me there are Two problems with this idea

1 If you go looking for mental illness, instability, or fragility you WILL find it

The Rosenhan experiment illustrated this.

2 If you know you are being assessed for an illness, it's more or less guaranteed you will find yourself having some of the symptoms whether you have the disease or not, most humans are suggestible to some degree.


And lets not forget that it benefits the mental health industry if more people can be diagnosed as needing 'help' of some kind.

I can't help wondering how many people with depression are suffering from the effects of continually having to deal with the psychotic nature of our schools as children, and then the psychotic way those in government treat us?

Plus of course we can start drugging more of them at a younger age and make them easier to control

[Earthtracer]

We do have to be careful though, not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I am not suggestinbg any agreement with this early testing stuff - hocus-pocus I would call it - but there has for far too long been far too little recognition of mental health issues. I think this is because most of us are scared stiff of the whole subject. However, when it sneaks up and hits you in the face, it becomes a steep learning curve.

It is also scary, because one soon finds out that the level of competence among medical health staff varies hugely. The drugs used are very strong and powerful and really need to be prescribed carefully. And that is after a proper diagnosis has been arrived at. Suffice it to say that the best psychiatrists are excellent and caring. Best not talk about the worst.... just try and avoid them and the damage they all too frequently do.