There are different approaches to treat psychiatric conditions
From therapy to medicine, each of these strategies has its own strengths and limitations that make them applicable in different situations. There is the risk of over-prescription of medications or a mismatch of the medication approach with the diagnosis due to the essence of the psychiatric conditions and the difficulties involved with diagnosing them correctly. Most of the time, though, medicine is used to correct these conditions and has its own strong points and adverse results.
Discussion
On the positive side, medication is easy to monitor and administer. The doctor has to determine a dose to give the client after which he monitors its effectiveness over a period of time. This straightforward nature of drug prescription makes it desirable. Additionally, it takes far less time to prescribe a dose than to walk a patient through a therapy session, which is an ethically wrong stance. However, on the downside, medication in psychological disorder treatment tends to be overprescribed and end up harming the patient, besides denying them the simpler treatment through therapy. Secondly, the drugs themselves have undesirable side effects that harm the patients and as such, they must be avoided or used only when necessary and in controlled doses. The drug therapy, however, is necessary as it provides a precise means of evaluating the patient and can be managed by the patient at home as opposed to alternative therapy methods (Connor, 2011).
The theories of psychiatric disease explore its potential causes in terms of behavior, developmental aspects, as well as cognitive and social approaches. They help psychiatrists and doctors better understand psychological disorders and thus be able to prescribe proper medication. The greatest challenge in the use of psychoactive medication over the coming several years shall be the danger of over-prescription and misdiagnosis. The former is due to the innocent and prevalent nature of the drugs while the latter is due to the difficulty in accurately diagnosing differentiating psychological disorders, for example, ADHD and Autism.
References
Connor, D. F. (2011). Problems of overdiagnosis and overprescribing in ADHD. New York: Psychiatric Times.
