Yippee! The Schizophrenogenic Parent is Back…!

Lima, A., Mello, M., & Mari, J. (2010). The role of early parental bonding in the development of psychiatric symptoms in adulthood Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 23 (4), 383-387 (link to abstract, below).

The Role of Early Parental Bonding in the Development of Psychiatric Symptoms in Adulthood 2010

Lorenz following ducks around and scientists watching how rats elicit a startle response (Lima et al. 2010, p.383) should hardly constitute theories of anything, let alone serve as foundational to how humans deal with acute stress in childhood and beyond. Yet, I cannot help but be amused by the return of the ‘schizophrenogenic’ parent, those stir-crazy mas and das who beat their little darlings into perpetual madness. Gone for so long, like many bright ideas from the 1960s, but back because of a gaping epistemological sinkhole big enough to swallow Guatemala whole. So crappy parents really can cause mental disorder in their children, after all?

You see, for decades now psychiatrists have been telling us that mental disorder appears like magic from out of the ether, striking unsuspecting citizens down without fear or favour. Mental disorder thus, is proposed to be a consequence of faulty biology or faulty genes or a combination of both that as if Jesus on a good day is just there. The trouble with this grotesquely grand narrative is that it is based on nothing. It never had a ring of truth about it other than that convenient truth of shielding perpetrator parents and other perpetrators to boot to the extent that they could form quasi-religious schizophrenia and other mental disorder ‘fellowships’.

All of this wonderful historical context is seemingly lost on Lima et al. (2010), who content themselves with squeezing out that chewy old brownie that poorly attaching parents can lead to highly anxious children (p.386).  We already knew that. Okay, okay, I accept that like an embarrassing uncle who is never mentioned at weddings or funerals, the silence about the harm caused by crappy parents has been palpable. Yet silence cannot obviate a reality that has been festering away on the sidelines ever since the backlash against the big ideas of the anti-psychiatry movement. Maddening environments create mad people, pure and simple. We have run but we cannot hide from that cause and effect maxim.

I did like the conclusion put forward by Lima et al. (2010), in that they call ‘for a public-health policy promoting education and training programs on parent-child relationships’ (p.386). They believe that this would:

‘translate into direct benefit for infant development and positive mental-health outcomes in adulthood. These programs would no doubt contribute to reducing the levels of psychiatric morbidity and the multiple deleterious effects of poor parental bonding’ (2010, p.386).

To that worthy suggestion I say, here, here…!