This statement was made by British psychologist Oliver James in a recent article by The Guardian.
I hope James is right. I fear he is not.
James is referring to new research which suggests major psychiatric disorders are not biological but situational - a response to a childhood trauma. Why is this going to set the psychiatric community on its ear?
Because it totally redefines the cause of psychological disorders. Current psychiatric thinking is that disorders are biological. If psychiatric disorders are biological, then they are permanent and will require lifelong treatment with psychotropic medications. But recent studies are questioning this belief.
There has been a quantity of research studies in the past few years which show that childhood traumas can lead to major psychiatric disorders (like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) later in life. They also show that these traumas are "dose-related". In other words, the earlier the trauma, the more traumas which occur and/or the more repetitions there are of traumatic incidents the more severe and predictable are the psychiatric symptoms which are manifested in adulthood. These findings may very well rock the psychiatric community.
The current theory is that psychiatric symptoms are "abnormal" malfunctions of the human brain which must be treated so that the person can be more normal. Psychiatric symptoms are viewed as a "disorder", a disease, a malfunction, something which is inherently wrong. They are considered to be: 1) biochemical imbalances in the brain, 2) permanent and 3) requiring a life time of psychiatric medication.
What if they are not a biological malfunction? What if they are trauma reactions? This will totally redefine the problem. Trauma reactions are not abnormal. They are not a malfunction. They are not a disease. They are normal responses in normal people to an abnormal situation. These symtpoms do not need to be treated as an illness or disorder, but processed and experienced. Patients may be healed and sent on their way rather than chemically straight-jacketed for the rest of their lives.
If the problem is not a "chemical imbalance" you cannot treat it with a chemical solution. You cannot medicate a trauma reaction. You might temporarily employ medications to reduce symptoms while the client works through the trauma, but it is only temporary and does not address the problem. The only permanent fix for trauma is to process it through therapy, not medicate it. The medicating of a childhood trauma is futile at best and potentially harmful due to the high risk of side effects and the altering of the brain's natural chemistry.
Also, if the problem is situational and not biological, these disorders are not permanent and will not require a lifetime of treatment. They are transitory if the trauma reaction is treated and the client can hope to return to a functional life. Dr. James' statement is therefore no exaggeration.
This could rock the very foundations of modern psychiatry and there could be some serious repercussions. Psychiatrists might be forced to examine their desire to medicate everyone rather than provide psychotherapy. Big Pharma will have a serious dent put in their marketing schemes if everyone does not require a permanent psychotropic fix for the rest of their lives.
For these reasons, I fear Dr. James might be wrong about the effect of this research on the psychiatric community. These findings may be buried and their proponents hushed. It would not be the first time. Freud, as far back as 1896, proposed that many of the symptoms he found in his female patients were the result of childhood sexual abuse. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, in his book, The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory
Only time will tell. In the meantime, please feel free to read other articles reviewing this research:
"Schizophrenia and Trauma"
"Bipolar Disorder and Trauma"
"Childhood Abuse, Depression, Anxiety, Mood Swings, Bipolar Disorder and Trauma"