Your Child in the Balance: An Insider's Guide to the Psychiatric Medicine Dilemma

by Kalikow, Kevin T., M.D.

• ISBN13: 9781593153595
• ISBN10: 1593153597
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-30
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

In Your Child in the Balance, child psychiatrist, Kevin Kalikow examines the highly topical and thorny question of whether and when to prescribe psychiatric medication to children. As parents, are we too ready to run to our pediatrician for Ritalin when our child shows the first sign of inattention at school? Or do we instead shy away from our doctor's recommendation to consider an anti-depressant for a chronically sad and withdrawn teenager? Among the ever-growing outcry that psychiatric medicines are over-prescribed to children and adolescents today, how is a parent to know whether medication is the right treatment for their troubled child? Dr. Kalikow tackles these questions with the sensitivity and insight of years of experience helping families through the thicket of research and opinion to find the right answer for their child. Through many colorful vignettes, he explores our efforts to protect our children from the inevitable hurts and disappointments of childhood, and the role that medication can play in that attempt. On the other side, Kalikow shows us our determination to have our children succeed or fail on their own, the way we had to do, even to the point of refusing the medication that might help them overcome a serious and potentially chronic disability.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
INTRODUCTION The "Can Do" Age of Psychiatry	1	(6)
CHAPTER 1 The Challenge of Change	7	(8)
CHAPTER 2 The Elusive Criteria for Changing Your Body	15	(8)
CHAPTER 3 Bring on the Brain	23	(6)
CHAPTER 4 Psychiatry Welcomes the Brain	29	(14)
CHAPTER 5 A Duty to Treat	43	(6)
CHAPTER 6 The Challenge of Children	49	(10)
CHAPTER 7 The Evolving Diagnoses of Children	59	(10)
CHAPTER 8 The Burden of Proof	69	(6)
CHAPTER 9 The Benefits of Medicine	75	(22)
CHAPTER 10 Let's Be Practical	97	(14)
CHAPTER 11 The Risks of Medicine	111	(10)
CHAPTER 12 Subtle Psychological Side Effects	121	(10)
CHAPTER 13 Concealed Consequences	131	(8)
CHAPTER 14 Medicine's Competition	139	(16)
CHAPTER 15 Oh, to Be a Parent!	155	(6)
CHAPTER 16 The Pressures on the Prescriber	161	(12)
CHAPTER 17 Too Many Prescriptions?	173	(20)
CHAPTER 18 Rosie	193	(44)
CHAPTER 19 The Time Is Now	237	(10)
Appendices
Are You Wise If You Try an SSRI?	247	(4)
Recommended Reading	251	(2)
Acknowledgments	253	(2)
Notes	255	(6)
Bibliography	261	(8)
Index	269