Sunday Star Times
October 26, 1997
Study links mental illness to sex abuse
by Phillipa Keane
A leading Auckland clinical psychologist is challenging views that psychotic
disorders such as schizophrenia are biologically or genetically based.
John Read, a senior lecturer in clinical psychology at Auckland University
with more than 20 years' experience working with schizophrenia patients, has
spent the past year researching the condition and conducting his own New Zealand-based
research.
From a review of 15 international studies Dr Read has found that 50% of
female psychiatric in-patients have been sexually abused as children and
approximately two-thirds have been either sexually or physically abused.
Of the 767 in-patients surveyed, 382 had been sexually abused.
"Traditionally, schizophrenia has been perceived as hereditary and
mental health professionals have looked for biological explanations," he
said.
"These staggering findings suggest we can no longer deny the possibility
of a causal link between childhood trauma and supposedly biological/genetic
illnesses such as schizophrenia."
Allen Fraser, a consultant psychiatrist at Auckland Hospital's Connolly Unit since
it opened five years ago, did not believe there was a causal link between
sexual abuse and psychotic disorders.
"I do agree that questioning a patient's history isn't done enough and
that could be for a number of reasons, but there are other factors
involved," he said.
"Sometimes if you are admitting someone for the first time you don't
know if they have been asked about their past before, and you don't want to
trigger any bad memories so you don't ask."
Dr Read said sexual abuse was not the only cause of psychotic disorders.
Other factors included poverty, loneliness, homelessness, gender and race.
Worldwide trends show indigenous people are two or three times more likely to
be diagnosed with schizophrenia than the rest of the population.
An Auckland woman whose son has been
diagnosed with schizophrenia welcomed Dr Read's research.
She said psychiatrists didn't listen. They told her son he was delusional
when he became ill, without asking him any questions about his troubled past.
The woman believes bad behaviour can be mistaken for schizophrenia and
behaviour that often shows in one's teenage years can be triggered by
incidents such as teasing at school.
"In my son's case he was given medication as a solution. It
tranquillised him on the outside but he was boiling up inside," she
said.
"When someone is diagnosed with cancer, the doctor sits down with the
patient and discusses the alternatives. But never with a psychotic disorder
have we had a chance to sit down and discuss my son's history and a plan of
action."
Dr Read said it was no longer good enough for health professionals to look
towards medication as a solution for those with psychotic disorders.
" Medication is a short-term solution for
people in a crisis but it doesn't address the origin.
"My research shows it is now time for mental health professionals to ask
about abuse and to be ready when the answer is yes."
Dr Fraser believes a combination of medication and psycho-social work is the
best way to help a person suffering from a psychotic disorder.
"It is accepted by most people that sexual abuse is associated with
psychotic disorders in later life, but there must be something else going on.
"It's like a study in America in the '70s which
showed that if you had two colour television sets you had an increased chance
of having a heart attack. Not many people would say you could attribute
televisions to heart attacks."
Dr Read is studying the cases of 100 New Zealanders suffering from psychotic
disorders. About 1% of our population suffers from some form of psychotic disorder.
He expects to have his research published early next year.
The last New Zealand study, conducted by a group of Otago University
psychologists in 1993, showed women whose sexual abuse as children involved
genital contact were five times more likely to be admitted to a psychiatric
hospital as adults than non-abused women.
Those whose abuse involved intercourse were 16 times more likely to be
admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
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Sunday Star Times
November 2, 1997
Schizophrenia and protection
by Elizabeth Goode
I suffer from schizophrenia and see John Read's research as a further punishment
for people with this already debilitating medical condition.
Several years ago in the grip of a psychotic episode I accused my father, my
boyfriend and my mother of sexual abuse. None of them had ever abused me.
This is common practice for people suffering with schizophrenia when they
become deluded and over-imaginative.
The Auckland University Psychology Department was where it was suggested to
me I had been abused and, being unwell and suggestible at the time, I
believed what I was told.
Like any victims, schizophrenia sufferers are often sexually abused later in
life when they have the condition and can't stand up for themselves when they
are being taken advantage of.
People with schizophrenia need protection from themselves and it seems also from
over-zealous academics.
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Sunday Star Times
November 2, 1997
Sexual abuse arguments
by Gordon Waugh
Dr
John Read's "staggering findings" on his perceived relationship
between sexual abuse and psychotic disorders (October 26) are better
described as "tottering".
It is generally accepted that some psychotic disorders, particularly
schizophrenia, result from biological abnormalities. His so-called link
declares an abysmal ignorance of basic scientific tests. Theories must be
testable, falsifiable, capable of peer review, and have a known error rate.
Association does not prove causality.
Proof is needed that the 382 patients were in fact sexually abused, and that
no other possible cause of psychotic disorder exists. But, he says, poverty,
loneliness, gender and race could be factors.
Dr Read implies that parents of schizophrenics sexually abused their
children. That is cruel, heartless and offensive.
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