Abstract
Now that we have searched for evidence of genes that cause schizophrenia and other mental illnesses and come up empty-handed, we direct our attention to the psychogenic causes of mental illness and find a mountain of evidence linking these conditions to childhood sexual abuse and just about every other category of adverse childhood experiences. The fact that these conditions have their roots in psychological and social factors suggests that they might best be treated on a psychological and social level, a matter we take up in the next four chapters. This chapter features my interviews with John Read, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of East London, and with Miriam, a survivor of severe childhood sexual abuse who was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder at the age of fourteen, and who endured decades of harm at the hands of the psychiatric profession.
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Notes
- 1.
Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry.
- 2.
Sigmund Freud, “Further Remarks on the Neuropsychosis of Defense,” in Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses, Second Enlarged Edition, trans. A.A. Brill (New York: Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Company, 1912), 166.
- 3.
Ibid., 166–174.
- 4.
Sigmund Freud, Heredity and the Aetiology of the Neuroses (Plano: Read Books Ltd., 2013), Kindle; Freud, “Further Remarks”; Sigmund Freud, “The Aetiology of Hysteria,” trans. James Strachey, Appendix B in Jeffrey Masson, The Assault on Truth, Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1984), 251–282.
- 5.
Sigmund Freud, On the History of the Psycho-Analytical Movement, trans. A.A. Brill (New York: Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Company, 1917), 11, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hc4nan;view=1up;seq=7
- 6.
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, The Assault on Truth: Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1984).
- 7.
Ibid., 113.
- 8.
Terry Lynch, The Depression Delusion: The Myth of the Chemical Imbalance (Limerick: Mental Health Publishing, 2015).
- 9.
Sándor Ferenczi, “Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child,” trans. Jeffrey M. Masson and Marianne Loring in Masson, The Assault on Truth, Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1984), 289.
- 10.
Masson, Assault on Truth, 145–153.
- 11.
Ferenczi, “Confusion,” 288–289.
- 12.
Masson, Assault on Truth, 151–153.
- 13.
Jackson, “Critique,” 38.
- 14.
Ibid., 69–70.
- 15.
Maleta J. Boatman and S.A. Szurek, “A Clinical Study of Childhood Schizophrenia,” in The Etiology of Schizophrenia, ed. Donald D. Jackson, (New York: Basic Books, 1960) 396–399.
- 16.
John Read and Richard P. Bentall, “Negative Childhood Experiences and Mental Health: Theoretical, Clinical, and Primary Prevention Implications,” British Journal of Psychiatry, 200, no. 2 (February 2012): 89, https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.111.096727
- 17.
Anonymous, “Psychiatry on the Couch.”
- 18.
Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry, 39.
- 19.
John Read et al., “Child Maltreatment and Psychosis: A Return to a Genuinely Integrated Bio-Psycho-Social Model,” Clinical Schizophrenia and Related Psychoses, 2, no. 3 (October 2008): 235–254, https://doi.org/10.3371/CSRP.2.3.5
- 20.
Ibid., 236.
- 21.
Ibid., 236.
- 22.
John Read, et al., “Childhood Trauma, Psychosis and Schizophrenia: A Literature Review With Theoretical and Clinical Implication,” Acta Psychiatric Scandinavica, 112, no. 5 (October 2005): 333, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2005.00634.x
- 23.
Ibid., 340.
- 24.
John Read, Richard P. Bentall, and Roar Fosse, “Time to Abandon the Bio-Bio-Bio Model of Psychosis: Exploring the Epigenetic and Psychological Mechanisms by Which Adverse Life Events Lead to Psychotic Symptoms,” Epidemiologia e Psychiatria Sociale, 18, 4 (2009): 299.
- 25.
John Read and Nick Argyle, “Hallucinations, Delusions, and Thought Disorder Among Adult Psychiatric Inpatients With a History of Child Abuse,” Psychiatric Services, 50, no. 11 (November 1999): 1467–1472, https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.50.11.1467; Read et al., “Childhood Trauma,” 330–350; Read et al., “Child Maltreatment,” 235–254; Read, Bentall, and Fosse, “Bio-Bio-Bio Model,” 299–310.
- 26.
Read, Bentall, and Fosse, “Bio-Bio-Bio Model,” 301–303.
- 27.
Josie Spataro et al., “Impact of Child Sexual Abuse on Mental Health,” British Journal of Psychiatry, 184, no. 5 (May 2004): 416–412, https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.184.5.416
- 28.
Ibid., 418–419.
- 29.
Read et al., “Childhood Trauma,” 338.
- 30.
Ibid., 338.
- 31.
Read, Bentall, and Fosse, “Bio-Bio-Bio Model,” 301.
- 32.
Read et al., “Childhood maltreatment,” 243.
- 33.
Read and Argyle, “Hallucinations, Delusions, and Thought Disorders,” 1469.
- 34.
Read et al., “Childhood Maltreatment,” 241.
- 35.
Ibid., 241.
- 36.
Ibid., 241.
- 37.
Ibid., 241.
- 38.
Read, Bentall, and Fosse, “Bio-Bio-Bio Model,” 305.
- 39.
Ibid., 305.
- 40.
Richard P. Bentall, “Understanding Psychotic Symptoms.” In Models of Madness: Psychological, Social, and Biological Approaches, edited by John Read and Jaqui Dillon, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013) 226–227.
- 41.
Read et al., “Child Maltreatment,” 246.
- 42.
Stephan Collishaw et al., “Resilience to Adult Psychopathology Following Childhood Maltreatment: Evidence From a Community Sample,” Child Abuse & Neglect, 31, no. 3 (March 2007): 211–229, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2007.02.004
- 43.
Lisa A. Goodman, Mary-Ann Dutton, and Maxine Harris 2001. “Recent Victimization in Women and Men With Severe Mental Illness: Prevalence and Correlates,” Journal of Traumatic Stress, 14, no. 4 (October 1995): 615–632.
- 44.
Anouk L. Grubaugh et al., “Patients’ Perception of Care and Safety Within Psychiatric Settings,” Psychological Services, 4, no. 3 (August 2007): 193–201, https://doi.org/10.1037/1541-1559.4.3.193; Bruno Biancosino et al., “Violent Behavior in Acute Psychiatric Inpatient Facilities: A National Survey in Italy,” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 197, no. 10 (October 2009): 772–782, https://doi.org/10.1097/NMD.0b013e3181bb0d6b
- 45.
M. Cascardi et al., “Physical Aggression Against Psychiatric Inpatients By Family Members and Partners,” Psychiatric Services, 47, no. 5 (May 1996): 531–533, https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.47.5.531
- 46.
Craig Morgan and Charlotte Gayer-Anderson, “Childhood Adversities and Psychosis: Evidence, Challenges, Implications,” World Psychiatry, 15, no. 2 (June 2016): 93–102, https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20330
- 47.
Ian Kelleher et al.,, “Childhood Trauma and Psychosis in a Prospective Cohort Study: Cause, Effect, and Directionality,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 170, no. 7 (July 2013): 734–740, https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12091169
- 48.
Thomas Bailey et al., “Childhood Trauma is Associated With Severity of Hallucinations and Delusions in Psychotic Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” Schizophrenia Bulletin, January 2, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbx161 [Epub ahead of print].
- 49.
Primo Terno et al., “Holocaust Survivors Hospitalized for Life: The Israeli Experience,” Comprehensive Psychiatry, 39, no. 6 (November/December 1998): 364–367, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-440X(98)90049-9.
- 50.
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- 51.
Ibid., 444.
- 52.
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1963) 189.
- 53.
Stella Chess, “Mal de Mére,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 34, (1960): 613.
- 54.
Stella Chess, “The ‘Blame the Mother’ Ideology,” International Journal of Mental Health, 11, no. 1–2 (1982): 95, https://doi.org/10.1080/00207411.1982.11448908
- 55.
John Neill, “Whatever Became of the Schizophrenogenic Mother?” American Journal of Psychotherapy, 64, no. 4 (October 1990): 502.
- 56.
Shorter, History, 177.
- 57.
Garfinkel, Paul E., “The Changing Culture in Relation to the Practice of Psychiatry,” Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 70, No. 5 (September–October 2001): 229, https://doi.org/10.1159/000056259
- 58.
Frieda Fromm-Reichmann “Notes On the Development of Treatment of Schizophrenics by Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy,” Psychiatry, 11, no. 3 (August 1948): 265, https://doi.org/10.1080/00332747.1948.11022688
- 59.
For a discussion of the life and works of Fromm-Reichmann, see Chap. 11 of this volume.
- 60.
Trude Tietze, “A Study of the Mothers of Schizophrenic Patients,” Psychiatry, 12, no. 1 (1949): 64.
- 61.
Ruth Wilmans Lidz and Theodore Lidz, “The Family Environment of Schizophrenic Patients,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 106, no. 5 (1949): 344.
- 62.
E.R. Clardy, “A Study on the Development and Course of Schizophrenia in Children,” Psychiatric Quarterly, 25, no. 1 (January 1951): 86.
- 63.
E.J.A. Nuffield, “The Schizogenic Mother,” Medical Journal of Australia, 2, no. 8 (August 1951): 285.
- 64.
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- 65.
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- 67.
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- 68.
Tietze, “Study of the Mothers,” 62–63.
- 69.
Jeffrey Lieberman and Ogi Ogas, Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2015): 79–86.
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Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic.
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Hahn, P.D. (2019). Trauma and Psychosis. In: Madness and Genetic Determinism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21866-9_9
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