“Groundbreaking research in New Zealand shows sexual abuse may cause schizophrenia.” “The biggest myth about schizophrenia is that it’s a solely biological disorder,” co-author Dr Tony O’Brien said.
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How about, “The biggest myth about schizophrenia is that there is a single reliable condition called schizophrenia”.
There is no schizophrenia. What there is a continuum of psychotic which varies among unique individuals who experience greater or lesser degrees of different psychotic experiences at different times.
But yes, sexual abuse and every kind of abuse can cause psychotic breakdowns if the level of stress and trauma overwhelms a person’s ability to cope.
For some more information on why schizophrenia doesn’t exist but psychosis susceptibility does, check out Jim Van Os’ website, Schizophrenia Does Not Exist –
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@bpd. It seems the point of the story linked.
*****The medical concept of schizophrenia was historically a contested category within health and social care, he said….”It’s a concept understood by some to be an illness of biological origin, and by others, as a stigmatising label for a sometimes troubling pattern of experiences and behaviours.”….The legal decision allowed the recognition of childhood sexual abuse as one factor in in the development of schizophrenia…,.An ACC spokeswoman said the 2013 court decision sparked a review of its research literature….The organisation’s policy now accepted the development of schizophrenia may involve a complex interaction between genes and environmental factors…..”ACC continues to carefully consider each person’s unique situation and circumstances.”*****
M.IA. did not well reflect this in their lead. I believe they are still smarting from the establishment coming to agree that the behavioraly oriented DSM is wrong. Of course they still disagee on who & what is right.
Research sees several clusters of genes , discrete conditions that are captured under the umbrella “schizophrenia” but i think that hints at something beside a spectrum, a smooth continuum. Even a maieve observer might put the same sceptical conclusion to the “autism spectrum” low to high function…
My amayeur opinion but everyone needs more himility and less macho turf scenting. It seems the real spectrum is between “necessary” and “sufficient” camps then spread sideways on all possible nature vs nurture permutstions. Resulting in a grid, a 2 d specyrum space of turf claims-
Hi Walt, thanks for your thoughts.
I would say that many/most within the psychiatric establishment have not admitted publicly that the DSM diagnoses are fundamentally invalid/unreliable. A few like Insel did, but then they’ve tried to paper that over, walk it back and continue diagnosing and drugging as usual.
Most people on MIA, I think, are happy that Insel made his admission, even if it was equivocal.My point still stands that schizophrenia has never actually been proven to exist as a demarcable condition that can be reliably studied. The onus is on the claimant, in this case psychiatrists or those who do research assuming that schizophrenia is a valid construct, to prove convincingly that schizophrenia represents a distinct illness separate from other psychiatric illnesses. And so far they have woefully failed to do this. The failed to find specific genes for the so-called illness (which is basically a conception in their minds that they project onto innumerable people with different individual degrees and kinds of psychotic distress). And now they think they can find clusters of genes. But I predict that approach will fail abjectly also. Human suffering doesn’t work in the linear, Newtonian, clearly separable way they assume when they talk about these illnesses.
I would also emphasize how much damage has been done not only by drugging, but by also pessimistically telling people they have a brain disease that can never be cured. Unless you’ve gone through that, you can’t fully imagine the effect.
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P.S. always gripes me when the cited research is not hot linked.
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John Read has done a lot of research into “schizophrenia” and child abuse or ACEs. He found 2/3’s of children admitted into hospitals with signs of abuse end up with a “psychosis” diagnosis, while only 10% of non-abused children get this label. It strikes me as logical that most doctors would prefer to profit off of child abuse, rather than actually deal with all the legal ramifications of actually helping an abused child, and working to get the child abuser in jail, as is technically legally required.
And when a child abuse victim, a traumatized, but otherwise healthy person without an actual “mental illness,” is given the gold standard treatment for “psychosis,” the neuroleptics. These drugs alone can actually create both the negative and positive symptoms of “schizophrenia.” This iatrogenic reality allows the medical community to profit off of turning child abuse victims into “schizophrenics” with their drugs – thus it’s possible 2/3’s of all “schizophrenia,” or more, is actually the result of this type of for-profit medical misdiagnosis and subsequent iatrogenesis.
The adverse neuroleptic effects can mimic the negative symptoms of “schizophrenia” via neuroleptic induced deficit syndrome:
“Neuroleptic induced deficit syndrome is principally characterized by the same symptoms that constitute the negative symptoms of schizophrenia—emotional blunting, apathy, hypobulia, difficulty in thinking, difficulty or total inability in concentrating, attention deficits, and desocialization. This can easily lead to misdiagnosis and mistreatment. Instead of decreasing the antipsychotic, the doctor may increase their dose to try to ‘improve’ what he perceives to be negative symptoms of schizophrenia, rather than antipsychotic side effects.”
And increasing the neuroleptics, or adding more psychiatric drugs, can result in neuroleptic or poly-pharmacy induced anticholinergic intoxication syndrome, the central symptoms of which look exactly like the positive symptoms of “schizophrenia” to the medical “professionals”:
“Central symptoms [of anticholinergic intoxication syndrome] may include memory loss, disorientation, incoherence, hallucinations, psychosis, delirium, hyperactivity, twitching or jerking movements, stereotypy, and seizures.”
This syndrome is also called anticholinergic toxidrome and can result from combining the following drug classes:
“Substances that may cause [anticholinergic] toxidrome include the four “anti”s of antihistamines, antipsychotics, antidepressants, and antiparkinsonian drugs[3] as well as atropine, benztropine, datura, and scopolamine.”
Ironically, combining some of these exact same drug classes is what today’s psychiatric industry recommends as a cure for “bipolar.” Which means most “bipolar” today may actually be the completely iatrogenic anticholinergic toxidrome, and not “bipolar” at all.
A for-profit medical community that regularly profits off turning child abuse victims into “schizophrenics” with the neuroleptics, and other psych drugs, is a pretty sick industry. And such intentional, unethical, for-profit cover ups of child abuse were described to me as the “dirty little secret of the two original educated professions.”
Apparently the psychiatric industry has always been in the business of profiting off of covering up child abuse for the religions, by turning child abuse victims into “bipolar” / “schizophrenics” with the psych drugs. And the medical evidence does now imply misdiagnosing abused children as “psychotic,” then creating the negative and positive symptoms of “schizophrenia” with the neuroleptic, and other psych drugs, does seem to be the etiology of at least 2/3’s of all “schizophrenia” today. And most “bipolar” is likely also completely iatrogenic, not genetic.
It shocks me no one in the mainstream is interested in the likely actual etiology of the majority of “serious mental illnesses.”
