Regarding Pooh

In every joke is a grain of truth. I assume the point of the article by Sarah Shea and colleagues is that people we think are quirky could actually use some psychoactive medication to make them normal.1 Using the quirky characters of the Hundred Acre Wood is a clever way of making the point.

However, I find it sad that we feel the need to medicate everyone into sameness. The characters in A.A. Milne's stories comprise a community of unique individuals who function quite well in their society. Who is to say that they need to be changed, if they themselves do not? Methylphenidate for Pooh, paroxetine for Piglet, clonidine for Tigger, fluoxetine for Eeyore? And the behaviour changes suggested consist mostly of separating these individuals from their support systems — getting Roo away from Tigger and Christopher Robin away from his Freudian Pooh.

Our increasing use of mood- controlling drugs, although clearly beneficial for some people, threatens to turn us into a society that doesn't tolerate difference. Overmedicating is a problem that clinical psychologists must heed when contemplating treatment for patients. An article such as this that suggests (however cutely) that we should be looking to medicate individuals who did not seek treatment (and for the most part who did not express any dissatisfaction with their lives) pushes this problem in the wrong direction.

Finally, predicting that Kanga will end up struggling to look after multiple children “conceived in casual relationships with different fathers, stuck at a dead end with inadequate financial resources” is stereotyping, not diagnosing. Attitudes like this contribute to the lack of support and choices for single mothers and can become self-fulfilling prophesies when offered by health care professionals.