To the Editor:
In NYTimes (2/3/13), you wrote of Richard Fee’s Adderall addiction, the improper prescription of stimulants, and inadequate psychiatric care leading to his substance abuse and death. This tragic story could have been about any psychoactive drug, psychiatric disorder, prescriber or patient. The delivery of psychiatric treatment today has become one of superficial and
Richard Gottlieb
Josephine Wright
inadequate single session evaluations, infrequent five minute “medchecks”, and woefully inadequate short hospitalizations. The combination of pharmaceutical companies’ financially acquired influence on trainees and practicing psychiatrists, rampant advertising, profit-driven insurers unwilling to pay for thorough assessments, concomitant psychotherapy or adequate length of hospital stays, has created a corrupted system that overvalues medication and devalues careful assessments and psychotherapeutic work. Stimulant medication for individuals truly suffering from ADHD is definitely not the problem. What we have lost is truly comprehensive psychiatric care.
Josephine Wright MD
Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst
Author, Do we Really Need Ritalin: a Family Guide to ADHD (1997)
Richard Gottlieb MD
Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst
Associate Editor, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
Josephine Wright, MD (212)3627981, jowrightmd@aol.com
263 West End Avenue, NY, NY 10023
and
Richard Gottlieb, MD, (212) 3627727, richardgottliebmd@gmail.com
263 West End Avenue, NY, NY 10023