Have Pain? Pop a Pill!

We Americans are taking more medication today than ever before.

Mental health drug prescriptions for adults have increased 73% for adults and 50% for children over 10 years. In 2006, "one in 10 adults and one in 20 children reported having a prescription for a mental-health drug," according to the Wall St. Journal.

This increase in medication for mental health purposes is even greater than medication used for physical illnesses: Whereas drugs account for 26% of total health-care costs, it accounts for a whopping 51% of mental health-care costs!

People are now convinced - by pharmaceutical companies and HMOs? - they can achieve mental health quickly and easily by popping pills. As stated in the Wall St. Journal, "mental-health care has tipped toward the use of the psychiatric drugs while there hasn't been the same growth in the use of so-called psychosocial therapies, such as seeing a therapist." Why spend hours at the shrink when the pill will shrink the problem away?

Therapy takes work; pill popping doesn't.

Psychotropic medication is an essential ingredient of many patients' treatment plan. Let us not go to the opposite antiquated notion that mental illness is the result of a person’s deficiency or sin, and that anybody can rid themselves of emotional suffering. A person can neither cause disease nor talk it away.

The refrigerator mother does not cause autism.

However, there is a huge downside to relying solely on medication. When you leave the physician’s office, prescription in hand, you still need to get along with your family and function in society.

Medication does not eradicate the pain of psychological problems nor cure psychiatric illness. Rather, by means of stabilizing a person's physical world, medication enables him or her to learn how to cope with and enjoy living.

Medication cannot substitute for effort. There are no magic pills.

The High Cost of Entitlement

People of my generation frequently ask, "What's wrong with the children today?" I remember our parents asking the same question about our behavior, usually in reference to lack of respectful behavior.

There is a greater cause of concern.

Children today, many parents observe, feel "entitled" to whatever they receive; they neither appear grateful nor exhibit the desire to earn what they get.

Psychological entitlement is a problem not only at home but in the workplace. When an adult feels entitled to a pay raise, a bonus, or promotion that he does not receive he will get angry at his supervisor for not bestowing on him what he thinks he deserves. Similarly, if a child feels he's "entitled" to play on the computer, talk on the phone or own an ipod, he might throw a major tantrum when he doesn't get what he sees as a right rather than a privilege.

We live in an age of entitlements, from the CEO down. It goes hand in hand with the fact that major depression is the No.1 psychological disorder in the western world.

This is how: When we don't get what we want, we have two choices - blame someone else and get angry at them, or look at ourselves and see what needs to be changed. The first is a dead-end, leading to emotional distress, depression and psychological paralysis. The second thinking pattern leads to less distress - e.g.,disappointment and regret - as well as a call to action.

A person who feels entitled waits for others to do the work. He sits back on his throne of righteousness and, when the gifts don't materialize, wages war.

In contrast, one who understands that his job is to do, to act, to give will not wait for the resultant reward because he knows that he is not in charge of the outcome, only the effort. He is resourceful, determined and resilient; when one avenue is blocked, he looks for another one. In this way, he gives to society and feels energized by his actions.

Many people are suffering in this economic downturn. Those who cope best will be the ones who are using their time and energy productively. They will model for their children - not a sense of entitlement - but an ability to deal with the impediments in life.

What's in a name? Swine!

We are all concerned about the spread of swine flu in the United States and abroad. A comment in Israel on what to call this outbreak of influenza may seem laughable to many people.

You see, Jews don't eat pork and don't keep pigs as pets. Hence "swine" might be offensive, according to one Israeli official (who shall remain nameless in consideration of his already tarred public image), to those who do not keep pigs in their homes.

This official suggested an alternative name: Mexican flu. As a government official one would think he'd know better. Would he want someone to call a virus that originated in Israel the "Israeli flu?"

On the other hand, this discussion shows the power of language and labels, in particular.

Thus it's interesting that no one talks about the alternative definition of swine, namely, "a contemptible person." This association came to me because, as a child of a holocaust survivor, I recall that Jews were often called SWINE! by their Nazi persecutors.

Hugo Chavez understands this power in his use of Anti-Semitic language against Jews in Venezuela. His centuries-old strategy is to label the Jewish citizens as the source of all the world's problems. Similarly, the head of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calls Israel "a cruel and repressive racist regime" and blames it for the hatred of its enemies.

These leaders are using oft-repeated canards against Jews - euphemistically labeling them as Zionists or Israeli fascists - to deflect pressure from their citizens to deal with the economic, social and political problems of their respective countries.

So too, within the family, when one labels a child as the problem, the parents can focus on the child rather than on themselves. All of his actions are seen as evidence of that problem, whether they are or not. Eventually the child internalizes the label. It will be part of his self-image, one that he may spend the rest of his life trying to change.

Let us hope that with alert people all over the world monitoring the spread of disease, we will succeed in educating people of the dangers of "swine" - both physical and mental - and prevent its lethal consequences.