Trauma and Mental Disorders

I am reading a lot of research on how the symptoms of trauma and those of many major mental illnesses seriously overlap and will posting about this for the next week.  Most clinicians realize that the symptoms of depression and anxiety are part of the trauma spectrum.  Clients are often diagnosed with Major Depression or some type of anxiety disorder when the real problem is trauma.  Medication only lessens the symptoms (if you are lucky) but fails to resolve the actual disorder.  Treatment for the trauma resolves the issue and medication is no longer needed.  Clinicians are also are of the relationship between some personality disorder (i.e. Borderline Personality Disorder) and trauma.  But what I am now finding is that the medical model for psychiatric disorders may not be as accurate as it claims to be, or even useful.  Research is showing that trauma may be the underlying cause of such major mental illnesses as; Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder and Schizotypal Personality Disorder.  And that symptoms such as hallucinations, mood swings and psychosis may be better explained as trauma symtoms rather than a biological disorder.  It seems that once the trauma is treated, the "disorder" resolves itself without medication.

Because this is such a revolutionary way of thinking I'll be posting the research findings for each symptom or disorder complete with references to journal articles. 

I hope you enjoy this series.  In the future, to return to this series, click the "Trauma" category in the right side bar.

Comments

[anon]

I couldn't agree more. For me, though, medication made things worse because my unconscious knew that drugs (and yes they are all nothing but druggings) are meant to shut up the truth about what has happened to the person because nobody wants to hear it. Drugs also harm the body, just like the trauma. I have also found many therapists to be strictly CBT types who want people to be quiet about the trauma and not let the truth of it show in any way. They want people to behave as if everything is alright EVEN THOUGH IT'S NOT. They want us to pretend and then we are failures when that makes us crazy. This is why therapies made me worse, too. As a matter of fact, but for my present therapy, ALL TREATMENT (even self-help books about anxiety and depression) made things worse. Same with religion (forgive and forget), positive thinking, etc. I am only better off now because I got fed up with people and have no problem telling them (with the most colorful language imaginable) exactly where they can stick stuff like that. If I feel anxious, then I just do. If I get tired or depressed, then I just do. I don't care who likes it. And I have dumped all idiots who are put out by my disinterest in pretending. It is freshing to read a professional admitting the truth that no one is allowed to say lest it hurt the feelings of some abusive family somewhere.

[Kellen]

I'm afraid you are quite right. I read an interesting book about this phenomenon, Unspeakable Truths and Happy Endings. The author discusses how Americans cannot tolerate unhappy endings or unpleasant stories. We don't want to hear anything painful or sad. Unfortunately, this sometimes includes therapists who should be able to hear pain, that is what they are for.

Thank you for your comments.