I started my psychiatric residency in 1960. Compared to today, children and adolescents were a relatively small part of the psychiatric population and treatment consisted almost entirely of some form of psychotherapy. The use of medication for the treatment of children and adolescents was unheard of. In the following decades, more and more young people came to the attention of the psychiatrist and drugs were introduced in their treatment. Today, the treatment of choice for children and adolescents is with medication designed to suppress the disturbing symptom.
The increase in the number of young people needing psychiatric help is one of the many destructive consequences of the transformation of Western society from authoritarian to anti-authoritarian. The authoritarian society of the past was based on the authoritarian family. Based on sexual repression, the father was the enforcer of compulsive authority and the mother, in particular, was the bearer of the authoritarian moral code, of distinguishing right from wrong. From the standpoint of society, when repression was successful there was a general sense of social stability manifested as loyalty and respect for authority and authoritarian social institutions.
In today’s anti-authoritarian social order there has been a weakening in the authoritarian family. From a behavioral standpoint parents are not able to be emotionally responsible for raising and taking care of their children. Society is being torn apart. The old authoritarian morality has been replaced by a far more destructive morality, political correctness, based on authority which originates from outside the local authority of the family. The new authority is qualitatively very different from the old authoritarian authority since it consists of people’s opposition to traditional forms of authority. This has necessarily resulted in centralized or collective authority. Full of disrespect for all forms of traditional authority, children and adolescents are increasingly out of touch with their biological core and with traditional values and practices that once held society together. There has been a sharp rise in anxiety levels manifested in severe attention deficits (disturbances in contact), hyperactivity and various forms of impulsive behavior requiring psychiatric attention. Many of these conditions did not exist 50 years ago. Unfortunately the only form of treatment at the traditional psychiatrist’s disposal is with symptom suppressing medications. The underlying source of the emotional problems of young people are consistently evaded.
By contrast, those trained by the American College of Orgonomy in medical and social orgonomy understand and are prepared to deal with the destructive changes in people’s structure resulting from the anti-authoritarian transformation of our society (see ” The Practice of Medical Orgone Therapy in Anti-authoritarian Society” in The Journal of Orgonomy, volume 43 number 2).
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Neither Left Nor Right
The Emotional Plague
Charles Konia, M.D. 
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