Just about nine billion dollars a year is spent treating childhood depression and other psychological issues. That’s more than we spend on any other condition that faces children (though more total children - over thirteen million of them - were treated for Asthma than any other single disease or injury).
While there is certainly a place for interventions, I have two big concerns when it comes the amount of money being spent treating kids for psychological disorders. First, I think we over-pathologize the behavior of children and have become way too quick to describe a trait as a symptom. Second, when kids are treated, they are too likely to be given psychotropic drugs to cover some broadly described malady.
