Adolescent depression continues to be a growing American problem since its discovery in the 1970s. How exactly to treat this problem, however, is not a clear issue. For years the psychiatric community felt that psychotherapy was the best way to treat this growing epidemic. However, with the development of antidepressants, most famously Prozac, many people feel the problem is nearing a solution. Many psychiatrists believe these pills can be a quick and effective way to treat suffering adolescents. Many others believe this solution is too quick and too easy to be true. Unqualified personnel are over prescribing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (antidepressants) to children and adolescents ignoring more time-consuming but effective treatments.
             Depression diagnosis remains a tedious task due to the many symptoms as well as the other mental illness that share these same indicators. One would believe that a licensed mental professional diagnoses children and thus writes prescriptions, however, primary care doctors write a large sum of child prescriptions (Koch 596). It is difficult to believe that these physicians are adequately assessing an adolescent's mental health. Psychiatrists believe that in order to correctly determine a child's mental health professional needs to conduct a two to three hour examination (Koch 597). Most child and adolescent physicians see their patients for a sum of ten to twenty minutes at a time (Koch 598). According to psychiatric recommendations, physicians do not have time at all to make a viable assessment of a child's mental health. Kids must be heard out concerning a variety of issues to separate childhood troubles from childhood depression.
             On the other hand, many health professionals say that a child, in the turbulent times childhood presents, could not accurately describe their feelings. These primary care physicians rely on their own experience with children as ...