... far more (and far too many) cases of people being prescribed medication for psychiatric 'problems' for the rest of their lives. I believe - perhaps wrongly - that the vast majority of those are unable to stop their medication because it is treating a symptom, rather than solving a problem. Of course, the medical community at large has no real incentive to solve problems, because that would mean fewer office visits, and so would mean 'no Porsche for Christmas this year.' There was, however, a specific case I was thinking of in which a friend of mine was prescribed medication as a child to stimulate her brain's production of a hormone (for lack of a better term) that was out of balance. After several years, she was able to taper off the meds completely. Her body had begun producing the hormone consistently on its own. In fact, in her case, staying on the medication would have created an imbalance in the other direction, because she would have then had too much of the hormone. Hers was one of the rare cases that saw the doctors finding and treating the root cause, instead of only the symptoms.