Suffer the Children: The Case Against Labeling and Medicating and an Effective Alternative

A persuasive rejection of mainstream child psychiatry that guides parents to understand their child's behavioural problems without stigmatizing diagnoses. Disturbingly, a great number of children experience dangerous emotional and physical side effects from psychotropic medicine. Where can parents who are eager to avoid shaming labels and drugs turn when their child exhibits disturbing behaviour? Suffer the Children presents a much-needed alternative: child-focused family therapy. A family therapist for over twenty years, Marilyn Wedge shares the stories of her patients. Wedge presents creative strategies that flow from viewing children's symptoms not as biologically determined "disorders" but as responses to relationships in their lives that can be altered with the help of a therapist. Instructive, illuminating and uplifting, Suffer the Children radically reframes how we as parents, as health professionals and as a society can respond to problems of childhood in a considerate and respectful fashion.