| Some authorities say that up to 60 percent of | | | | of her biological father, the rejection by her mother |
| psychiatric patients, both in-patient and out-patient, | | | | as a result, and constant debasing comments by |
| report childhood histories of physical or sexual abuse | | | | both parents and both sisters all of her life. Not even |
| or both. This estimate excludes emotional abuse and | | | | her head-banging, a dead giveaway for sexual abuse, |
| neglect. | | | | was noticed. |
| My experience confirms that very many patients are | | | | Another woman was in treatment for thirty years |
| suffering from PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) | | | | for depression and a "borderline personality disorder," |
| as a direct result of childhood maltreatment. But they | | | | ten of these years with the same psychiatrist. When |
| do not know what their real problem is. | | | | the decade had passed, he remarked, "I really don't |
| Psychologists and psychiatrists know what to expect | | | | think I can help you." |
| in the way of symptoms with war veterans: PTSD. | | | | Never was her sadistically violent tormentor, her |
| We know as fact that the experiences of war can | | | | husband, ever seen or even asked about. She in no |
| produce in even the strongest individual the | | | | way had a borderline personality disorder, but she |
| constellation of symptoms that therapists should | | | | was indeed suffering from PTSD as a result of |
| recognize as trauma. But for some reason, we have | | | | life-long abuse. |
| only begun to make this same connection with | | | | None of her therapists had been interested in |
| people whose lives have been a "war." | | | | causality. A disinterest in root cause is, in my opinion, |
| One woman, who spent nearly 20 years in therapy, | | | | the greatest weakness in the mental-health |
| first with an educational counselor, then three | | | | professions. |
| psychiatrists, plus a family therapist, found herself | | | | We have clung so closely to the medical model that |
| with suicidal feelings right up to the time she entered | | | | emotional disturbances of most any kind have |
| our group for domestic abuse. | | | | historically been seen as free-standing, as though |
| One psychiatrist, an analyst, spent two years asking | | | | they had arisen from an infection, from a vacuum, or |
| her, "What do you think?" Another psychiatrist gave | | | | from nowhere. |
| her open prescriptions for highly addictive drugs, and | | | | How this mentality has survived is a mystery, when |
| the third psychiatrist wanted to use electroconvulsive | | | | in any other science the principle of cause and effect |
| therapy, probably the worst possible treatment for | | | | rules. |
| trauma survivors. The family therapist ordered her to | | | | Put another way, for every action there is a reaction. |
| draw a family geneology chart. | | | | Molest, torture, humiliate, or neglect a child severely |
| None of the above professionals seemed determined | | | | enough, and PTSD or similar symptoms will be the |
| to find the cause of her suffering; they just had their | | | | reaction. For this reason, the treatment of domestic |
| favorite ways of treating symptoms. | | | | abuse is the treatment of child abuse, and both are |
| Her real problem had been nightly incest at the hands | | | | the treatment of trauma. |