Continuing the schizophrenia theme – the latest issue of the journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica is a special edition on the link between childhood trauma and schizophrenia.
The new findings support the argument for a bio-psycho-social approach to psychosis and come in the wake of a recent article in Psychiatric News, published by the American Psychiatric Association, about the overmedicalisation of psychiatry, and an article in the October issue of The Psychologist, published here in the UK, subtitled ‘what happened to the ‘psycho’ and ‘social’ in explanations of mental illness?’.
If you don’t have access to the journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, Oliver James wrote an essay in Saturday’s Guardian on the new findings and their implications for the treatment of schizophrenia. For example, he says that a review of 13 studies found that between 51 to 97 per cent (depending on the study) of people diagnosed with schizophrenia had previously suffered sexual or physical abuse. His essay says the new findings will shake the intellectual foundations of the psychiatric establishment like an earthquake.
Update:A report on one of the papers from this special issue of Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica now appears on the BPS Research Digest here
Mind Hacks 