Back to Recovery: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Inquiry Into Childhood Psychotropic Medication Management

Abstract

This theoretical study explores the management of psychotropic medications in the child and adolescent populations of our Western Culture. Upon observation it is noted that there has been an ever increasing rise in the prescription and usage of psychotropic medications within our youth populations, most notably in our more recent history. Through a thematic hermeneutic phenomenological exploration using the research methodologies of Martin Heidegger (1967), Fredick Schleiemcher (Foster 2008), Wilhelm Dilthey (1998), and Max Van Manen (1990) in which written research will be examined from the prospective of the lived experience letting “that which shows itself be seen from itself, just as it shows itself from itself” (Heidegger, Pg. 30). This methodology will bring interpretation and experience together in this research forum. This dissertation will explore through phenomenological examination the emergence of diagnosis in culture, religion, philosophy and psychology, the rise of Cartesian biological psychiatry and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the shadow of the technological epoch. It will identify and delineate the vicissitudes of child/adolescent psychiatric care in contemporary culture; including potential reasons for this increase in child and adolescent mental health diagnosis’, the seeming short comings of the psychotropic medication management of symptomology, and the return to earlier forms of symptom management such as depth therapeutic interventions as viable and evidence-based alternative to medication management in these populations.