Top psychiatrist: 'Psychology is turning childhood into a disease'

FOR any parent, having to accept your child needs psychiatric drugs must be agonising. But when Susan Bevis's 13-year-old daughter Amy suffered a breakdown after a vicious campaign of school bullying, drugs seemed the only option - as instructed by psychiatrists

Amy's ordeal began when she simply fell out with a clique of girls. The situation steadily worsened and she faced constant online bullying as well as being physically attacked in class. Gangs started to follow her home, and the family house and car were damaged. Neither the police nor school seemed able to do anything.

Under this terrible strain, Amy began to break down. After months of sleeplessness and extreme anxiety, she said she'd begun to hear voices in her head. Her mother sought medical help. Instead of being offered counselling and social support, Amy was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as having 'first-rank schizophrenia', which means she had signs of the condition.

Susan was initially sceptical, but was so anxious to get help she reluctantly agreed to Amy being given medication - this was Risperdal, an antipsychotic that changes the way chemicals in the brain work.

One of the major criticisms is that the number of new psychiatric diagnoses added to it is rising exponentially. In 1952, the manual was 130 pages long. The fifth edition has 992 pages. And this latest edition has controversially added new diagnoses such as 'Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder', which essentially makes children's temper tantrums a mental illness. (homosexuality was once on the list but removed after criticism)

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