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American Pediatrics and the Transition from Mental Health to Illness Since the 1960s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2020

LAURA HIRSHBEIN
LAURA HIRSHBEIN*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Abstract:

American pediatricians are now bearing the brunt of massive increases in demand for treatment of mental illness in children and adolescents, areas in which many pediatricians have not been well trained. It would be logical to encourage policy measures to increase pediatricians’ expertise in this area to improve access to care. But the expanses in demand for services are about much more than increased incidence of biologically-based illnesses. Instead, pediatricians are caught juggling between their traditional focus on health and prevention and a rapid rise in broad socially, culturally, and economically mediated distress among young people and their families. This article explores the historical context of pediatricians’ engagement with mental health and the hazards of the push toward treatment for mental illness. The historical perspective can help us develop policy more directed to broader goals of improving the mental health of our nation’s children and adolescents.

Keywords

child psychiatryreimbursementmedicationsmedical modelbehavioral pediatricschild development
Type
Critical Perspective
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , July 2020 , pp. 360 - 382
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

This research was supported by a Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award. The paper was first presented in the Ralph Hermon Major Lunch Series, University of Kansas Department of the History and Philosophy of Medicine in March 2018. Many thanks to Chris Crenner, Ryan Fagan, and the participants in the lunch series, as well as the editors and reviewers of this journal, for their helpful comments.

References

Notes

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