Re: Ken: schizophrenia

[Guest guest]

> > I dont think anyone

> > ever " assumes it is all genetic " - if it were, the concordance for

> > schizophrenia in identical twins would be 100% and it is not.

> > However,

> > there is a very high degree of heretibility.

> But that still does not answer the question as to whether it can

>come into

> being without an insane environment. Since I'm not familiar with

>the details

> of the studies, I have to ask, where the identical twins reared

>together or

> apart? Was living together until two or three counted as not living

> together?

The basic concordance and heritability stats are just done with

whoever happens to be handy, which of course will almost always mean

kids who were reared together. Heritability represents a comparison

of the difference in concordance between identical and non-identical

twins, and it is high for schizophrenia. Of course, an obvious

confound here is that identical twins are likely to be treated much

more similarly than non-identical ones. I once asked in a lecture if

the non-identical sample was restricted to same sex twins, as

identical ones are always same sex, and hence the different genders of

50% of non-identical pairs is a very obvious confound quite over and

above the fact that identical ones are much more alike generally. The

lecturer didnt know the answer, and got very uncomfortable and even

angry that I asked the question, and said " Well they could restrict

the sample to same sex pairs if they wanted to. " Well of course they

could - my question was whether they had actually done it. This

confound is so obvious and so easily eliminated that I cant believe

that they didnt actually do so (but then maybe I'm giving them too

much credit), but what is of great interest here is that the

psychology lecturer whose business is to know such things didnt know

the answer but was still trotting out the heritability statistic as if

she was fully conversant with all the validity issues associated with

it. What this to me reflected is that the high heritability of

schizophrenia has now become such a given that it is more or less

accepted by the experts without even remembering the underlying

assumptions - and that of course, is dangerous.

I cant say for certain that the question of separate rearing hasnt

been addressed but the combined rarities of twins, schizophrenia, and

separate rearing while remaining traceable have probably rendered such

studies impossible, though they have been done with regard to general

psychology.

> Is it possible that the children who will become schizophrenic are

> identifiable because the damage has already been done?

Of course. However, many of the stressors that ppl give as reasons

why individual ppl become schizophrenic are often late in childhood

and may even be at the time the schizophrenia appears, as you yourself

suggested when you referred to the " environment that brought the

schizophrenia about " .

> One thing

> psychiatrists and other medical people are famous for ignoring is

>the effects

> of growing up with mentally ill people in authority.

REALLY? I think not. As in the US most psychoanalysts are MDs, then

isnt in fact true that they are notorious for claiming that ppl suffer

as a result of the actions of their parents?

> Or perhaps [Pete's schizophrenic friend's] hallucinations and

>delusions are a symbolic recounting of actual experience.

Indeed - intriguing and disturbing quandary, is it not?

> You mean that the small child who is easily identifiable by even lay

>persons

> as to become schizophrenic is causing insanity in the family that

>would

> probably also be readily visible to the lay person if the stage were

> otherwise set?

While I dont agree with Rita's criticisms of your arguments, one

annoying habit you do have is expressing an idea in hyperbolic terms

in order to attack it. I didnt refer to " causing insanity " and in

fact I didnt refer to family dynamics before the person developed

full-blown schizophrenia. I dont actually know the stats, but I doubt

that ppl identified the incipient schizophrenic kids with total

accuracy - it was just above average by chance alone. They wont have

been easily identifiable if they didnt know that some of the kids they

were looking at were *definitely* going on to be schizophrenic -

otherwise we'd be realizing which kids would go that way all the

time. Hence, the kids' behavior probably wasnt all that different

from the normal kids, and also, the lay ppl could go by appearance as

well as behavior. Since the kids' behavior wasnt all that unusual and

in fact no-one in the family actually realized that anything was

wrong, there is no reason to think that the family would look all that

unusual at the time. However, when as a teen they went schizophrenic,

that would cause a nightmnare for the family that would throw it

totally out of kilter. Liberal therapist/writer gets to see

possibly heartbroken, frightened, traumatised, and exhausted parents

who may have partly or totally given up all hopes for their kid and

concludes that this " schizophrengenic " demeanour was what caused the

schizophrenia when in fact beforehand they may have just been fairly

average, imperfect parents.

> I know nothing about autism except stories of the harm that the

" refrigerator

>

> mother " theory caused as a discount of the theory. Knowing nothing

>about it,

> I can't comment on it either way except that there seems to be a

>great deal

> of glee and illogical extension of one particular psychiatric

>disorder to

> virtually all psychological disorders.

Well one thing that might interest you is that it used to be called

" infantile schizophrenia " before it was found out to be something

different. I would say that the glee (combined with righteous

indignation) and illogical extension of one particular psychological

disorder to virtually all psychological disorders is exactly what

yourself and other psychiatry skeptics do when they point to the

failings of one aspect of psychological theory and practice ( e.g.

regarding alcoholism/addiction) and hence decide that all of it must

be a total crock. The tragedy of this is that you might win a lot of

hearts and minds of the medical profession with regard to

alcoholism/addiction - if you didnt totally lose it again when

attacking areas where there is widespread agreement that the

psychiatry is sound.

P.