Teen Screen, an effort to screen for suicide among adolescents, got a good push from Charles Q. Choi. Writing in Scientific American, Mr. Choi (or, his headline writer) asked the eminently sensible question, “If mental illness is epidemic among teenagers, why isn’t screening for it routine?” He runs through the facts and figures, drawing on the case of Laurie Flynn and Ms. Flynn’s 17-year-old daughter Shannon’s attempted suicide, to make the case for screening, especially among adolescents with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders.
Teens with mental disorders are at even greater risk—roughly 90 percent of teens who died by suicide had a psychiatric illness at the time of their deaths, according to research by child psychologist David Shaffer at Columbia University. Nearly two thirds of youth who die by suicide exhibit psychiatric symptoms for more than a year beforehand, which makes this time a significant window for potential intervention.
Although it has strong supporters such as National Alliance on Mental Illness, Teen Screen has detractors such as Psych Search (an organization that opposes psychiatry and pharmcological treatment of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders). One detractor, Teen Screen Truth whose express purpose “is to provide the truth on mental health screening programs by presenting information gathered from various sources on the Internet,” decries the effort, claiming “that the intended treatment for those so labeled is psychiatric drugging, using antidepressants and mood-altering drugs such as Ritalin, Xanax, Celexa, Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, Thorazine, Luvox and other similar drugs which are known by the FDA (and the pharmaceutical companies) to cause depression, violence, suicide and homicide.” Without providing a thorough review of the arguments posed on Teen Screen Truth, let me say that I think a careful reading of the objections by someone who is passingly familiar with the literature on Emotional and Behavioral Disoders and assessment would reveal that the arguments are exaggerated and predicated on mistaken (perhaps even misrepresentative) analyses of the evidence.
Link to Mr. Choi’s Scientific American article. Link to TeenScreen. Here is a link to NAMI‘s page about Teen Screen. For those who want to examine the details of the counter case (check the out-of-context quote from Professor Shaffer!), here’s a link to TeenScreenTruth. And, here’s a link to the apparently Scientology-associated Psych Search critique of Teen Screen.
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We have been studying this very issue, as our school district may implement teen screen. After lengthy research, and consulting with a number of psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, parents, and researchers, we have been convinced of its unworkability. We have compiled a thorough overview on TS, with info given to us by the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology. They are opposed to mass mental health screening, and will be addressing this topic in Washington this fall.
KPU is stepping up in the teen screen fight.
Please see our website Kenosha Parents Union for an awesome powerpoint presentation on Teen Screen: http://kenoshaparentsunion.org/TSQ&A/index.html
Fight the Fight, sign the Petition!!!!
http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html
Over 17,000 signatures to date and over 800 Doctors signing
I am confident that given the opportunity there are few parents who would sit by and watch their children be drugged blindly in an effort to circumvent what is almost always a behavioral isse. The fact that there is little acknolwedgment to the fact that behavior and response to environment can be positively affected with approaches different than drug therapy, it should be very strongly pointed out that big pharma just loves the idea that making another several billion dollars prescribing drugs to anyone who will accept them is just frothing at the mouth. As do rabid dogs, their avarice is exceeded only be their self-interest and any justofocation will do.
We need to STOP putting acronyms and cute phrases to easily understood mental phenomena which can be handled quite easily with other approaches. This is less about what alternatives that exist than the fact that some are trying to drug our culture into stupidity in the name of profit. I would agree that there are many that are wel-intenioned but how many Columbines and VA Techs do we need before we realize that conditions are being worsened, or created even, by the affect of drugs on the human body and the mental by-product which results.