November 13, 2024 • Brooke Siem
Psychiatric Drugging of Children and Youth as a Form of Child Abuse: Not a Radical Proposition
Today, I’d like to share with you an essay by Dr. Bonnie Burstow, a professor and psychotherapist who spent most of her career at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
The essay, published in the academic journal Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry in 2017, is the sort of work that burrows into your psyche. The core idea presented—that psychiatric drugging of children (including with ADHD drugs) is a form of child abuse—seems radical at first glance. But the deeper you get into the paper, the more difficult it is to argue with the claim.
I am going to refrain from injecting my own thoughts on the essay and instead leave you to process it on your own. However, the paper is quite dense and the language has an academic bent that can make it difficult to understand if you don’t speak academic-ese. Thus, I have pulled key highlights from the work and added them below. Everything blow is a direct quote from the essay. All emphasis (in bold) is my own.
I have also linked to the full paper through a public Google document. I encourage you to read the full piece and share it with your friends and family.
To learn more about Dr. Bonnie Burstow, who died on January 4, 2020, in this New York Times profile.
“Psychiatric Drugging of Children and Youth as a Form of Child Abuse: Not a Radical Proposition” by Bonnie Burstow
Context:
- The context in which this article is written is the enormous psychiatric drugging of children—a major phenomenon throughout the world, particularly pronounced in North America and especially the United States.”
- A related context is the emergence of a new discourse which frames all such drugging as a form of child abuse in the strictest sense of the term (Baughman & Hovey, 2006; Breggin, 2010, 2014; Healy, 2009).
- Harm committed by “helping professionals” is generally only seen as abuse when it departs from what is professionally recognized as “standard care”— however oppressive that “care” may be. Yet, to be clear, it is not simply the extreme, that is, what typically is called “overdrugging,” nor is it simply what I would suspect is rare, maliciously intended drugging, but rather it is precisely the everyday psychiatric drugging of children that is being identified here as a form of abuse.
Key Definitions
- Kelowna Women’s Shelter definition of abuse: “Abuse is any behaviour that is used to gain and/or maintain power and control over another person”
- Royal Canadian Mounted Police definition of child abuse: Child abuse refers to any form of physical, psychological, social, emotional, or sexual maltreatment of a child whereby the survival, safety, self-esteem, growth, and development of the child are endangered. There are four main types of child abuse: neglect, emotional, physical, and sexual. (RCMP, 2012)
- The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 6:
- 1. State parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life2. State parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and the development of the child (UNCRC, Article 6).
- The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 37:
- 1. No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel or unusual punishment.
2. No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily (UNCRC, Article 37).
- 1. No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel or unusual punishment.
Key Clarifications:
- Practitioners’ every day delivery of psychiatric drugs to children and that educators’ every day cooperation with such drugging are instances of people doing what they have been trained to do—not instances of intent to harm. Correspondingly, parents for the most part are trying to be “good parents” by following doctors’ orders.
- What is happening to the children constitutes child abuse as conventionally defined or rights abuse as defined by an institution recognized as a moral authority
Psychiatric Drugs and Their Use with Children
- The rationale is that the child has a mental disorder and that there are specific drugs tailored for the disorder—hence the appropriateness of the “treatment.” However, as painstakingly shown by Burstow (2015), Breggin (2008a), and Colbert (2001), there is no physical foundation for any of the so-called mental disorders.
- Each and every class [of psychiatric drugs, primarily antipsychotics, antidepressants, and stimulants like Adderal] disrupts normal chemical levels, creating both short-term and permanent imbalances. Each and every class can lead to structural abnormalities in the brain and as well cause the brain to either to shrink (particularly common) or enlarge. Each and every class obstructs the child’s ability to navigate life. Each and every class commonly creates agonizing neurological disorders—agonizing both physically and emotionally as well as creating other bodily dysfunctions. And in all too many cases, it is as if the child’s brain were being put into a straight-jacket, for the recipients are seriously impeded in their ability to think, feel, move, and act (e.g., see, Breggin, 2008a, 2010; Burstow, 2015; Gøtzsche, 2015). And it is precisely this disabling which is being interpreted as “improvement.”
- Antipsychotics by their nature impede the transmission of dopamine, leading to a dopamine deficiency, which in turn impedes the workings of the mesolimbic system, the nigrostriatal system, and the mesocortical system, culminating in a blunting of the emotions, cognitive impairment, and movement dysfunction (Jackson, 2005; Whitaker, 2010). They arrest what is commonly thought of as normal development and frequently lead to despair, suicidality, and feelings of inferiority (Breggin, 2014). Over time, permanent brain shrinkage is likewise standard.
- Antidepressant use leads to an excess of serotonin, with the brain desperately attempting to compensate for the overabundance by killing off its own receptors (Burstow, 2015). Consequences include cognitive impairment, movement impairment, agitation, and violence (Burstow, 2015). Researchers in the United Kingdom issued a warning that children on antidepressants experience “a doubling of suicidal acts or ideation compared to placebo” (Healy, 2009, p. 128).
- Stimulants work much like antidepressants, causing an overabundance of the transmitters serotonin and dopamine (Gøtzche, 2015). The brain attempts to compensate for the attack on itself by killing off the respective receptors (see Gøtzsche, 2015; Whitaker, 2010). Effects include enduring chemical imbalance, extreme agitation, frontal lobe impairment, highly uncomfortable movement disorders, an inability to appreciate the nature of one’s actions (intoxication anosognosia; see Breggin, 2008b), violence, suicidality, growth retardation, mechanical robotic-like behavior, diminished spontaneity (for further details, see Burstow, 2015), and addiction.
How psychiatric drugging of children fits the conventional definition of abuse
“Abuse is any behaviour that is used to gain and/or maintain power and control over another person” (Kelowna Women’s Shelter)
- Control—not just influence—over the child’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are gained and maintained through the application of the psychiatric drugs, and whatever else may be going on, to some degree at least, the drugs are administered with this in mind. The child, for example, is fidgeting in school and not paying attention—and a drug is administered and continues to be administered which in essence takes control over the child and enforces robotic-like attention.
“Child abuse refers to any form of physical, psychological, social, emotional, or sexual maltreat- ment of a child whereby the survival, safety, self-esteem, growth, and development of the child are endangered. There are four main types of child abuse: neglect, emotional, physical, and sexual. (Royal Canadian Mountain Police, 2012)”
- “Any form,” by definition does not rule out psychiatric drugs delivered by professionals
- On numerous levels, note, the psychiatric drugging in question involves a physical attack on the brain and other parts of the body. I would remind the reader in this regard of the dieback which is forced, whereby the brain destroys its own receptors in a desperate attempt to maintain its own physical integrity.
- Psychological maltreatment, in addition, is inherent in the implicit message conveyed to children by virtue of subjecting them to psychiatric drugs—that is, that they are not all right as they are, in effect that they have a “mental illness”—a message which cannot but erode their self-esteem. This brings us to the qualification included in the definition, which reads “whereby the survival, safety, self-esteem, growth and development of the child are endangered.”
- Given the tendency of these drugs to culminate in suicide, so too, at an utterly basic level is survival
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 6:
1. State parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life
2. State parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and the development of the child (UNCRC, Article 6).
- Of the general types [of rights violation] mentioned— “physical or mental violence, injury, or abuse,” the various and predictable injuries to the brain and other parts of the body already outlined clearly qualify as physical injury. Corre- spondingly, the ongoing subjection of the child to that injury constitutes violence. By the same token, the dismal state in which the child is commonly thrust (e.g., the depression, confusion, extreme agitation) clearly qualifies as mental violence.
- The dramatic difference in the rate of suicide and suicide ideation between the child on these drugs and the child on placebo suggests that, in at least some instances, the child’s right to life is being violated.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 37:
1. No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel or unusual punishment.
2. No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily (UNCRC, Article 37).
- I would suggest that the agonous sensations and bodily disorders commonly created by the drugs constitute torture and as such, the administration of these drugs to children fits the frame. For example, I would ask the reader to reflect on the following description of movement disorders commonly caused, by antipsychotics:
- Tardive dyskinesia can impact any muscle functions, including the face, eyes, tongue, jaw, neck, back, abdomen, extremities, diaphragm, oesophagus, and vocal cords. . . . Tardive akathisia, a variant of TD causes a torture-like inner sensation that can drive patients into despair, psychosis, violence, and suicide . . . TD is a major threat to children. . . . Even “mild” cases of eye blinking and grimacing can be humiliating. More severe cases disable children with painful spasms in the neck and shoulders, abnormal posture and gait, or constant agitated body movements and a need to constantly, frantically pace. (Breggin, 2014, pp. 233–244)
- Two different instruments of the UN have already declared involuntary psychiatric treatment torture regardless of the fact that torture is not the goal (for details, see Minkowitz, 2014).
- Given that most psychiatric drugging of children is not voluntary,the psychiatric drugging of children is inherently suspect in light of the UN’s psychiatric treatment determinations.
A final note to think about
If something constitutes abuse, it is not in the best interests of the person being subjected to it—not with women being battered, not with children being assaulted with harmful drugs.
There are, of course, people who would argue that a definition like this cannot cover the area of child abuse because, irrespective of other considerations, it is always critical to do what is in the best interests of the child. (Don’t claims like this frequently underlie oppression?)
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