There has been so much bullshit in psychiatry.
My mother, who lived for her children, was essentially accused of child abuse by a psychiatrist during his explanation of my sister's diagnosis of schizophrenia to her. She apparently had been an over controlling and cold mother.
None of her children would subscribe to that.
However that accusation and the stress of caring for my sister over many years contributed, in my view, to my mother's untimely death to an autoimmune disease.
I'm sure that psychiatrist probably never gave it any thought beyond that day.
Psychiatry has a long way to go before I'll consider it has risen beyond quackery.
Those attitudes - that mental illness are caused by the family - are old and not acceptable any more. See RD Laing for an example of a psychiatrist who used to push this incorrect theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._D._Laing
> Those attitudes - that mental illness are caused by the family - are old and not acceptable any more.
"Not acceptable"? Your post suggests that, because the "refrigerator mom" idea has been debunked, that mental health professionals can't think that way any more. But this isn't how psychiatry and psychology work. An absence of solid science (of explanations) means that, even though a way of thinking has been discarded at the top, those at the bottom are free to keep thinking the same way.
This is why, more than a year after Asperger Syndrome was abandoned, psychiatrists and psychologists continue to apply the diagnosis. This is why, decades after homosexuality was dropped from the DSM, psychiatrists and psychologists are free to offer therapies meant to correct this "defect" in some of their clients.
> See RD Laing for an example of a psychiatrist who used to push this incorrect theory.
Incorrect or not, it wasn't a theory, defined in science as an idea about a cause, an explanation, with supporting evidence and falsifiable by new evidence. There aren't any of those in psychology.
But mental illnesses definitely CAN be caused by the family. A mental illness is the result of genetics and environment interacting, same as any illness. You can have a genetic predisposition to depression, but something in your experience of the world has to trigger it.
It's like breaking a stick. The stick can be really thin and easy to break, or really thick and sturdy. But either way, outside pressure has to be applied to break it. The amount of pressure required varies.
In general I agree with you - much of the mental health field is bullshit. However, there are some really good people who are trying to make it better. So, like much of medicine, the problem becomes trying to find one of the good ones...
