Recovery From Schizophrenia: Psychiatry And Political Economy

24 BACKGROUNDcortex and the limbic system are linked; an abnormality in one can affect theother, though it is not certain which area is primarily disturbed. 64Step by step, links are being forged between inheritance patterns, biochemicaland anatomical abnormalities and the symptoms of schizophrenia. We can beginto understand how early biological factors, development and environmentalstresses may interact with an individual’s physiological response pattern toprecipitate an episode of schizophrenia.The family“In my own very self,” wrote D.H.Lawrence in his last work, “I am part of myfamily.” 65 Psychiatrists since Sigmund Freud have regarded the family as crucial tothe development of human personality and mental disorder. AntipsychiatristDavid Cooper saw Western family life as a form of imperialism crushingindividual autonomy. 66 It is to be expected, therefore, that many will have lookedto the family for dynamic forces capable of creating schizophrenia.In 1948 psychoanalyst Frieda Fromm-Reichmann proposed that some mothersfostered schizophrenia in their offspring through cold and distant parenting. 67Others have pointed to parental schisms and power imbalances within the familyas important in the genesis of the illness. 68 The double-bind theory, put forwardby anthropologist Gregory Bateson and his colleagues, postulated thatschizophrenia is promoted by contradictory parental injunctions from which thechild is unable to escape. 69 Existential psychoanalysts R.D.Laing and AaronEsterton offered a similar formula for the production of schizophrenia through themystification of the child with confusing patterns of communication. 70While enjoying broad public recognition, such theories have seldom, if ever,been adequately tested. Some researchers claimed to find abnormalities in thepatterns of communication within the families of people with schizophrenia thatwere not evident in other families. 71 These findings, not confirmed by laterresearch, 72 proved to be controversial. 73 None of the work in this area,furthermore, satisfactorily resolved the question of whether the patterns ofdeviance alluded to in the families of people with schizophrenia were the cause orthe effect of psychological abnormalities in the psychotic family member.For example, a Finnish study children who were given up for adoption, andwhose mothers had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, found that the childrenwho developed schizophrenia themselves were more likely to have been raised inadoptive families that were rated as being disturbed than in normal families.Although the findings suggest that schizophrenia may be the result of aninteraction between genetic factors and the family environment, it is also likelythat the higher levels of disturbance in the adoptive families were, at least in part,a consequence of rearing a disturbed child who had pre-morbid symptoms ofschizophrenia. 74While there may be stresses in the rearing of children that could increasevulnerability to schizophrenia, their nature and existence have not been verified.