"The psychiatric establishment is about to experience an earthquake that will shake its intellectual foundations."

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, makes a coherent argument that the psychiatric community turned its back on Freud, froze him out and forced him to recant.  I fear the same fate may await modern researchers, only the stakes this time are much higher.  The idea that psychiatric symptoms are the result of trauma only caused a conflict of idealology in psychiatrists of the 19th century.  In the 21st century this idea will be economically costly for the pharmaceutical industry and it has been repeatedly shown that they exert a heavy influence on the psychiatric community.  I wonder if they will not use their fiscal muscle to shut this information down.

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"

Comments

[Rick Belden]

Thank you for this post. Like you, I feel very strongly that we are long overdue for an honest discussion and reevaluation of the diagnostic / treatment philosophy that characterizes anyone with a psychological issue as a biochemical machine with a predefined defect that is hard-wired and permanent, a mechanism whose functions can only be "corrected" via long-term (often lifetime) pharmaceutical intervention. I am reminded of the D.H. Lawrence poem "Healing":

"I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections
And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly that I am ill
I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self
And the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help
And patience, and a certain difficult repentance,
Long, difficult repentance, realization of life’s mistake, and the freeing oneself
From the endless repetition of the mistake
Which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify."

Like you, I hope we're coming to a point at which we can finally begin to move toward a more comprehensive, enlightened view of the human psychological experience, in all its depth, complexity, mystery, and richness. But I also expect, as you do, that the behemoth financial forces that are currently defining and running the game for their own benefit will do whatever they deem necessary to protect their interests, now and into the future.

And those of us who can see a better way will keep working on its behalf as best we can.

[Kellen]

Hi Rick,

This is a perfect example of why you are such an eloquent poet. I hope people visit your site by clicking on your name above. The wealth of wisdom that awaits them there defies description. Thank you, again, for your kind words and your support.

[Nony]

Ok. To this I can only say thank you thank you. I was a perpetual thorn in my psych teachers side on this subject five years ago. We've had lot's of nutters like myself professing these things for years but it means nothing unless real research is done to sort out the truth. The medication of kids in foster care is soooo disturbing. Have you watched the youtube videos? Wildest Colts was involved with that production, google wildest colts.

[Kellen]

"Nutters"? In my humble opinion, people labeled as "nutters" are often just ahead of their time. The medication of children everywhere disturbs me greatly. And many times it is with medications which, when prescribed for adults, concerns me. And we're giving them to kids. Thank you for bring up Dr. John Breeding (author of The Wildest Colts make the Best Horses) He is here in Austin where I live. I do not agree with everything he says, but I love his book and heartily agree with his very strong stand against medicating children. Thank you for reminding me of it. His videos on YouTube are wonderful. I hope more people listen to him.

[nony]

I particularly found "the normal test" to be hilariously insightful. He does strike as having perhaps done a large amount of "mind expansion" possibly in the 60's? : ) Brilliant passionate guy, of course not right about everything, as we zealous folk get a little too excited with our super awesome ideas...

I'm glad he's fighting the good fight though. I don't know if he will be able to influence "the state of things" but I certainly hope so, or even if it has nothing to do with him, I hope that more people will honestly seek the truth even if it doesn't match the view of mental wellness they've been taught.

[Flan]

As a twin sister of someone who spent 22 years in a state mental institution, this reminds me of how people used to blame the mother for causing schizophrenia.

I am not saying that depression, even major depression cannot be situational. My depression is just that. I spent 30 years dealing with the grief and loss of my twin to the disease and the past year dealing with the grief and loss of my twin to lung cancer.

I am taking an anti depressant AND going to psychotherapy. The anti depressant has been a tremendous help - in the short term - while I believe the therapy will help in the long term.

As far as my twin goes, there was never a day that went by when he did not say something delusional. Not one day in 33 years since his first major psychotic episode when we were 16. While there were outside elements that I believe made his illness worse (doing PCP and acid), our family has a history - going back generations - of major depression and psychosis (we used to hear about my crazy uncle who was sent away). I can't believe that all of this was caused simply due to situations that happened in our lives. I believe that there is some predisposition to some form of mental illness in our brains.

Below is a link to an interesting article about an MIT study which I find a more likely cause of mental illness...

http://agonist.org/20090120/study_may_cast_light_on_mental_illnesses

[Kellen]

Hi Flan,

I'm sorry to hear of your sorrows. I think it is especially hard to lose a twin or to watch a twin suffer. Sometimes, the twin who is not impaired or who survives struggles with survivor's guilt, wondering why they were spared. This makes the loss even more hard to bear.

The article you posted is interesting. Thank you for the information. I will have to read more about it. Our understanding of the brain and its functions continues to grow and I think we only have a cursory understanding of its very complex functions. The question I always wonder about is, was the brain different at birth and cause the schizophrenia or did the schizophrenia change the brain? I suspect it is a bit of both: nature and nurture.

Thank you for the feedback and I wish you all the best.

Kellen