Educated opinion accepts that serious emotional problems require treatment. At the same time, many new emotional disorders have been uncovered over the years. The DSM's first edition, which appeared in 1952, identified 60 categories of disorders. By the time DSM-IV was published more than forty years later, the volume had grown to include 410 conditions. Not only have more emotional disorders been identified, but many more Americans are being treated for them.
Antidepressants account for the most drug sales.
But children are already being diagnosed and treated in record numbers. In fact, a number of professionals have expressed serious concern about the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of American youth. Part of their motivation was that one of the teenage shooters at Columbine, Eric Harris, had been taking Luvox, an antidepressant. When I was a child, antidepressants hadn't been formulated, and few children were treated for emotional problems. Yet, mass school shootings were not a part of the national consciousness.