Clinical Schizophrenia & Related Psychoses, a new scientific journal distributed to over 21,000 psychiatrists and other healthcare professionals in the USA, includes a review of ‘a large body of research demonstrating that child abuse and neglect are significant causal factors for psychosis’. http://clinicalschizophrenia.metapress.com/
The review, by three American and two New Zealand researchers, of over 200
studies, begins with the statement: ‘For several decades the conceptualization and
treatment of mental health problems, including psychosis, have been dominated by a
rather narrow focus on genes and brain functions’, and concludes with a quote from a
patient: “I just wish they would have said ‘What happened to you? What happened? But they didn’t?”
The authors are critical of mental health professionals for allowing the pharmaceutical industry to dominate research and services with their simplistic, pessimistic and overly biological view of mental health problems, designed to promote drug sales.
First author Dr John Read (University of Auckland, New Zealand) is Editor of the controversial book ‘Models of Madness’ which summarizes research critiquing the methods of biological psychiatry, the limited efficacy of antipsychotic medication, and a range of social causes of psychosis, including poverty and intergenerational family difficulties. Dr Read:
The evidence that the maltreatment and neglect of children is a significant causal factor is now conclusive. Our review also reports surveys in 16 countries, including the USA, showing that the public has long understood that mental health problems, including hallucinations and delusions, are reactions to life events not biological type illnesses. The research says they are right.
It is encouraging to see that psychiatrists in the USA are catching up with their European colleagues in recognizing that hallucinations and delusions are socially causeds and therefore require more than just drugs. The first step in any effective treatment is to establish a trusting relationship and ask what has gone on in the person’s life. Some psychiatrists had forgotten this.
Co-author Professor Paul Fink (Temple University and past President of the American Psychiatric Association):
“This paper is very important because although we knew trauma and abuse lead to risk-taking behavior and many other problems, not until recently have we seen its enormous deleterious effect on the brain and its relationship to serious mental illness."
Dr Fink: Pjayfink@
Dr Felitti: vfmdsdca@mac.com
Dr Read j.read@auckland.ac.nz phone: +64 21 889367
