Psychodynamic Essay

Psychotropic or antipsychotic medications are drugs used to help stable a person’s mood who may suffer from a variety of different mental illnesses. Psychotropic and antipsychotic medications serve different purposes, and many are used in conjunction with one another to help reach therapeutic goals. Antidepressants such as, Lexapro or Zoloft, fall under the psychotropic medication pharmacological class. Medications known as Clozaril, Risperdal and Haldol, are drugs that fall under the class known as antipsychotics, and help in treatments with a person who may suffer mental illnesses like manic depressive disorder and schizophrenia. These medications are not always used for their FDA recommended purposes, and when a prescriber does this it is known as
TDs are involuntary movements of the tongue, lips, face, trunk, and extremities that can occur from long term use of drugs like Risperdal or Clozaril (Barsic 1). In a movement disorder study conducted in 2007 on 118 children, 9% of those children on antipsychotics developed dyskinesias (Wonodi 1). These involuntary movements can affect a child’s speech and motor skills. This can further cause deficits in communication with peers and adults, making a child feel embarrassed causing social isolation. Involuntary movements of the extremities can cause difficulties with writing/typing causing a decline in academics/school performance, or inability to participate in extracurricular activities or sports causing feelings of less self worth. Plus, who really wants to live with their face have a continuous twitch for the rest of their life?
Working or dealing with children who have emotional or behavioral disturbances is not easy. “It is important when working with these children that non pharmaceutical approaches are used first to help them manage or cope through their behaviors” Dr. Speicher says. She continues to say medications are not “cures” to fixing a child’s behavior, and that children still need to