Drug Therapy vs Animal Therapy

Poor Children, the Problem of Drug Therapy and Possible Alternatives
Introduction
Foster children are more likely than children in the general population to have mental health issues (Polihronakis, 2008). Part of the reason for this is that foster children are in foster care because they have been neglected in their own homes, their parents are incapable of providing food, love, shelter and nourishment, and they are in need of a nurturing environment. Many of them will have experienced a traumatic event, or the transition from one home to another will be traumatic—and so they end up suffering from mental health problems. It is estimated that approximately 8 out of every 10 children in foster care have mental health issues, as opposed to 2 out of 10 children in the rest of the population (NCSL, 2019). For that reason, youths in foster homes and/or those who grow up in poverty are more likely to require a mental health intervention. The primary means by which the medical industry treats mental health issues is by way of pharmacological intervention—i.e., drug therapy. As Kutz (2011) shows, a higher rate of foster children receive psychotropic prescriptions than non-foster children. This is a problem because, as Korry (2015) and Whitaker (2001) both show, all of this medication can have a disorienting effect, make children feel disconnected from themselves and from reality, and totally sedated. Because children are going through an important phase of human development as adolescents, according to Erikson’s model of human development (Shriner & Shriner, 2014), they should be more fully aware, engaged, and actively participating in that development process so that they can resolve the important central conflict of the Identity vs. Role Confusion phase of development described by Erikson. If they are so sedated that they are stumbling through existence, this important conflict will not be resolved and they will enter into adulthood as though in a fog about themselves and their place in the world. What is more worrisome is that there are alternative methods of treatment that can be used—such as animal assisted therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy (Korry, 2015). This paper will discuss whether a drug-therapy heavy approach to treating poor and foster care children with mental health issues is part of the basis of creating dependencies to psychiatric drugs for the new generation.
The Issue
Because children of the poor and those in foster care are more likely to be diagnosed and treated with psychiatric drugs than others, they are more likely to develop dependencies on chemical substances than other children. It is much like adolescents who engage in risky behaviors, such as smoking marijuana or having premarital sex—they are more likely to end up teenage parents or addicted to some form of drugs. Those who expose themselves to more risk are more likely to be affected by negative outcomes. There will always be exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking the exceptions prove the rule.
By treating children with drugs there is the possibility that they will be cognitively and emotionally impaired. Their cognitive and emotional development (as well as their in vitro and also the physical development) can be negatively impacted, stunted, or altered (Whitaker, 2001). Though medical doctors prescribe these drugs because it is an accepted practice by the industry, there is evidence indicating that they are ineffective at actually helping these children to develop properly and normally (Korry, 2015; Whitaker, 2001).
The Case of DeAngelo Cortijo
As Korry (2015) shows, there is the example of DeAngelo Cortijo, who had been removed from his mother’s home at the age of three after she attempted suicide. By the time he was 14, he had been in more than a dozen different foster homes. He had run away and been homeless and had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, anxiety, attachment disorder, and PTSD. He was heavily medicated at all times but was told this was his only hope of being normal. Not until he participated in equine-assisted therapy was he able to get off the medication. Now at the age of 22, he is a fully-functioning and contributing member of society, “helping troubled youth as a juvenile justice intern at the National Center for Youth Law” (Korry, 2015). In other words, he was able to turn his life around by getting treatment that actually was humanized.
Humanist psychology was started by Adler, who broke from the focus of Freud and Jung, as they insisted that mankind had unconscious desires that drove the impulses of people. Adler disagreed and argued that people understood what they wanted and they wanted those things for a reason. Moreover, they were perfectly capable of pursuing their goals and achieving them. He argued that treating people was not a matter of tapping into their unconscious desires but rather of giving them good goals to pursue in the place of negative ones.
Animal therapy, as Korry (2015) shows is one of the ways that counselors and therapists can correct the years of drug abuse that the medical community has put upon young children brought to them for help. Drug therapy is often a band-aid on a serious developmental issue. It is a chemical fix that keeps the child at idle and prevents the child from veering off the tracks into trouble—but the child is not moving of his own volition. He will spend the rest of his life in that same position if his therapy does not change and allow him the opportunity to take ownership of his life, the way animal therapy did for DeAngelo.
What DeAngelo found was that “riding a horse, feeding, grooming and communicating with it” gave him the chance to develop a better sense of who he was as a person: “It allowed me to understand what a bond was, to realize I am an individual who is capable of caring, capable of being normal” (Korry, 2015). This is not unusual. Many participants in animal therapy have found the same. The reason animal assisted therapy such as equine therapy works so well is simply because the animal acts as a stimulus. It provides one with an environment that one is in control of because one is taking responsibility for an animal and thus necessarily assuming control of the environment. The animal serves as a stimulus for the young person, incentivizing the rehabilitation process and giving the individual a support that may not be found elsewhere. As Broaddus (2017) shows, animal therapy can allow young people who are already on drugs to have the feeling that the animal they are working with cares for them. Animal therapy can calm juveniles who are on drugs and give them peace of mind so that they can begin to address their issues from a stable position.
It also gives the individual the sense that he is not alone, that he has a place in the world. It also helps him to resolve the conflict between Identity and Role Confusion. Caring for an animal allows the person to have a sense of duty and responsibility that he did not have before. Drug therapy never provides one with that opportunity because it basically keeps one in a somnolent state. Animal therapy awakens one to oneself and to the world and takes away the confusion. It help DeAngelo find himself and overcome his other mental health issues. Animal therapy is usually used in combination with some other form of cognitive behavioral therapy, and the point it is that it supplements the humanist approach to psychology that is needed to help children like DeAngelo to overcome their mental health issues.
Drug Therapy Prevents Rather Than Fosters Growth
By simply treating children of impoverished parents or foster children with drug therapy, doctors and health care providers are limiting the child’s potential (Whitaker, 2001). The drugs impact the chemical makeup of the brain at a time when the child is still developing. Even if it is a parent who is on drugs, if the mother is pregnant, they can impact the child. Chemicals can completely alter a child’s personality and cause the child to become chemically addicted to drugs as he grows and becomes an adult. This is one reason why foster children have such a difficult time adjusting later in life. Only 3% of children who age out of foster care go on to graduate from college (National Foster Youth Institute, 2017). The challenges are just too great for them and many of them are hooked are drugs.
Although health care providers may be thinking of the immediate safety of the child when they put the child on drug therapy, they need to be thinking more long-term and how the drugs will impact them developmentally (Whitaker, 2001). Regardless of the concern that an early exposure to such medications, as in pre-school years, for teenagers it could be even more than problematic because teens are trying to figure who they are what they should do with their lives. Children are resilient but they need to be able to count on themselves by the time they are teens because otherwise they are likely to be one of the many lost foster children who grow into adults and never have a chance to make it because they have only been treated with drugs their whole lives instead of wit the nurturing love and care that a humanistic approach to counseling can provide. The drug therapy that children get is just a foundation for future drug abuse. But something lie animal therapy can do much more positive things for the child. It can even be used with drug therapy if drug therapy is needed initially, but in the end the aim should be to wean children away from drugs. Animal therapy can help as it has been found to be particularly effective as a complementary therapy in addiction as it introduces an animal into the person’s life and gives the child the opportunity to feel vitalized and important in something else’s life. Since most poor children or foster children grow up in environments where they feel neglected, abandoned or isolated, having an animal gives them an opportunity to experience something they have never experienced before—the chance to love and care and be loved and cared for by another. The animal can bring joy. What can the drugs bring other than stupefaction and possible cognitive and emotional impairment? This is why Whitaker (2001) condemns their use in treating children. It is why Seligman, Steen, Park and Peterson (2005) recommend a positive psychology approach: positive psychology is another humanistic approach that gives people a motivation to want to take back control of their own lives.
Conclusion
Children who grow up in poor families or in foster care are at greater risk of having mental health issues. Medical practitioners tend to favor drug treatment for children with mental health issues—but this does not help children to address the developmental issues they are facing. It also can impair them cognitively and emotionally and cause them to become drug addicts. Children need real, humanistic therapy instead so that they can resolve their internal conflicts and have a more promising future.


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