NOTE FROM TRISH: Thrilled that this is the topic as I struggled through the darkness of mental health issues and learning disabilities with my own, now grown and brilliant kid. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever ever done. But something told me to hold the line and keep him off the pharmaceuticals — including the time the “top expert” in New York City concluded all he needed to be fixed was a prescription for methamphetamine. I cried in the car all the way back to the hotel.
So, thanks to Jeffrey and Cooper for this important discussion. You can find Cooper’s writing on this at Brownstone. Here is a portion on child mental health screening.
A mental health professional might view the results and conclude that your child has a mental health problem…that needs to be psychiatrically diagnosed and treated, even medicated.
Will this help your child thrive? Or will it reshape their identity in undesirable ways? Will you be comfortable with your child taking medications that alter their developing brains and could perturb their sexuality? When your child reaches adulthood, will they be able to withdraw from these drugs, or will they despair to find out that their body and brain have adapted to them, making this difficult or maybe even impossible?
For any parent with even minor reservations about our current medical and mental health system, these aren’t theoretical questions. A new public policy has just made them very salient.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has signed a new law mandating universal mental health screenings for every child in public school. This includes healthy children with no signs of behavioral problems. Parents can theoretically opt out, but they’ll have to do so repeatedly, as the screenings will be given at least once a year from grades 3-12.
Media coverage has been laudatory, expounding on the importance of “getting kids the help and support they deserve.” But do you know what a mental health screen is and how it works? Before sounding the applause, parents need to understand what these screenings are, how they’re used, and what the potential outcomes of their use might be.
Here’s the intro for this week’s show.
There's a new voice behind the microphone this week! Frequent guest and friend of Trish, Jeffrey Tucker is leading the show to sound the alarm on the rising medicalization and chemicalization of everything. Joined by one of his colleagues at the Brownstone Institute, Cooper Davis, the two explore why during Covid so many had faith that a magic shot would solve all problems. It did not.
We see the same trend in mental health with people who believe that "surely there is a potion, surely some pill can make all the problems go away." Cooper is the executive director of an organization that helps people find ways other than chemical dependency to deal with mental health. His long experience with psych drugs has prepared him to take the lead in offering another way. In the backdrop of this is the loss of trust in the establishment of everything, including medicine and experts in all realms, including psychiatrists as the nation's new priesthood.
You can find Cooper’s organization here: Inner Compass.
Please do your thing in the comments below. All are welcome, including those with a different perspective. Jeffrey and Cooper will drop by when they can to engage.
Missing our back and forth here people but will see you soon.
Stay critical.
#truthovertribe
