Perfect Children

I would agree with the assessment that psychiatric drugs may be being overprescribed because "health insurers are reluctant to pay for `talk' therapies and other nonmedication treatments." But there are at least two other factors contributing to the problem. One is the direct advertising of psychiatric drugs to the public. And the other is an expectation in some circles that children must be perfect.

—Dorothy W. Cantor, former president of the American Psychological Association, from her letter to the Editor of the New York Times, January 15, 2003