Psychotherapists are regularly faced with the question about whether to consider psychotropic medications in treatment or whether to recommend medication evaluation to their clients. They routinely have to deal with clients who expect a "quick fix" and demand a pill to alleviate the suffering. Like clients, psychotherapists are often overwhelmed with the wealth and often conflicting medical and pharmacological information that is presented to them in professional literature, live workshops and TV commercials. As a result, clinicians are unaware of the specific side effects and drug interactions of psychiatric drugs. Managed care's demand for short term treatment, indoctrinated clients who seek an immediate relief combined with pharmaceutical marketing campaigns puts a lot of pressure on psychologists, social workers and counselors to consider medication and refer to a medicating physician for prescriptions.
This beginning level course reviews the major groups of psychiatric medication and provides the participants with an array of readily available online listings of medication by trade and generic names and by populations and conditions they are designed to be used with. It covers, with details, the major groups of Antidepressant, Anti-anxiety, Antipsychotic, Anti-Mania and ADHD medications. The medication for each group is listed, described and the side effects and contra-indications are reviewed.
Along with the description of the medications and their purposes and uses, the course takes a critical look at the use and abuse of psychotropic medication in the treatment of mental illness and for those who are not mentally ill. The course explores the economic interests of the psychopharmacological industry and its power and influence on the FDA, the construction of DSM categories and the general "quick fix" attitude of the culture. The work of Dr. Szasz (Myth of Mental Illness), Dr. Breggin (Toxic Psychiatry, Talking Back to Prozac) and others will be included in the exploration of the concepts, such "chemical imbalance," to justify extensive and often excessive use of psychotropic medications.
Finally, the course provides numerous and readily available resources on and listings of drug information, updates, side effects, drug interaction and counter indications. It also reviews the debate around the movement for prescription privileges for psychologists and provides resources for obtaining free and low fee medications.
