The neurodevelopmental hypothesis

This hypothesis states psychotic disorders are caused by disruptions in brain development before or at birth. It is thought interference with brain development during sensitive phases of prenatal development or birth cause subtle neurological damage that increase the risk of developing a psychotic disorder. Some well researched causes are maternal viral infections, malnutrition, severe stress and obstetrical complications. Research has also indicated people with schizophrenia are more likely to have a history of obstetrical complications than people without the condition. Research also suggests minor physical defects of the head, toes, hands and face, that are consistent with neurological damage, are more common among people with schizophrenia.

Interesting.

My birth was a medical emergency.

The last statement really caught my attention. I have webbed and deformed toes on my right foot. It is the Didgee trademark. My ears are also shaped differently. Apparently, malformed ears are common in people with autism spectrum disorder, which I have.

What do you think of this hypothesis?

44 years ago, the pregnant woman was told that certain things didn't affect the fetus, so a woman exposed herself to things that she thought was harmless to her and her unborn child. My mother smoked cigarettes like a chimney, drank alcohol, took Valium (popular Rx back then), was exposed to heavy metals and neurotoxins---her occupation being a mortician while pregnant with me exposed her and me to formaldehyde etc. She and I grew up on a ranch exposed to pesticides and herbicides, fungicides, etc. My mother's diet has always been awful, mostly sugary foods, and irregular eating schedules , so while pregnant with me I am sure it wasn't any better. I have a feeling she was unhappy while pregnant with me and therefore qualifies for the "extreme stress" category that the studies mention. She was exposed to viruses like herpes simplex (not the sex herpes) which is damaging neurologically.

I think there is a lot to what you have mentioned Little d. I have read these same studies and wondered about my exposures. The thing is some of my family members who were not exposed to some of these chemicals were also nuts. I am not sure about any of my familie's physical characteristics being strange.

I think it is a combination of genetics and environment. Your family members may have had other environmental factors that activated the associated genes.

There are other theories such as stress, expressed emotion in families, structural abnormalities of the brain, genetics etc... No one really knows. Psychotic disorders definitely have more than one cause.

Mimi thanks for your reply.

I'm the only one in my family with autism spectrum disorder and (most likely) schizoaffective disorder. My mum used drugs (and most likely drank) during her pregnancy since I was a surprise and she was most likely stressed during that time. I wasn't born with any deformities though.

Does autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia have a link?

My mom had preeclampsia when I was born but other than that she was perfectly healthy albeit with a tendency toward yummy milkshakes...apparently I made her sick and that's all she could eat. I don't like to think of my brain as damaged since I've done so well in life and have a high IQ so I like to believe that although there may be a developmental component it just changes how I think and not how effective I am.

I didn't have viral infections, malnutrition, or obstetrical complications when I was pregnant. I did have some stress but not what I would call 'severe.'

For a while I worried that I drank too much coffee when I was pregnant. Before I was pregnant I drank maybe 2 cups per day. I increased it throughout the pregnancy until I was having maybe 5 or 6 cups per day toward the end. My son has such a funny relationship with coffee. Sometimes it seems to make him more anxious, but other times it seems to clear his thinking.

Your reply points out research studies are not always correct. There are so many different factors in the environment that interact with our genes.

My mother had food poisoning when she was pregnant with me. I wonder if that has anything to do with my lifelong fear of vomiting.

I don't think so. My psychiatrist mentioned people with ASD can get paranoid when stressed which can be mistaken for schizophrenia. This is also why some ladies with ASD are misdiagnosed with BPD.

Well said.

Thank you all for the replies. I appreciate them.

Yea. Things are likely individual & complex & cross multiple areas. Pre/perinatal experiences, early brain development, familial dynamics, life experiences, stress & trauma, all sorts.

To me, I use a physiological (biologic), psychological/emotional, social/environmental, & spiritual model.

I've looked into everything. Mainstream psychiatry/neurology, alternatives & critical psychiatric perspectives, more in depth psychological understandings, & a lot of the spiritual theories as well.

In my own case I feel that there is a combination of things, but I still don't really have the answers. At the age of 17, one moment I was OKish, next moment I was stark raving & totally Insane, & it changed my whole life. I'm still trying to figure out what happened 23 years later.

My mum did go through a difficult time when she was pregnant with me & my twin bro, a difficult birth & a lot of stress & difficulties early on. Then there were a lot of stresses with difficult family dynamics. She did her best & a good job, & she is a good mum - There were a lot of things that were beyond her control. I do reckon that early brain development & the early environment does play a significant role in things. Combined with Genetic Mutation/Establishment at Conception, & then all the epigenetic stuff that goes on. There is madness in the family, there is probably some kind of genetic/epigenetic element to it all.

As you say, genetics/brain physiology, structure/neurology can't be separated out from environment/experience. I'd say it also can't be separated out from psychology & imo spiritual concerns as well. It is to my view all intertwined. It's the whole gamut & range of life experience - personal & wider dynamics/circumstances, environment, psychological, emotional & spiritual life, with the entire range of physiological factors - it's everything - it's life.

I'm not sure that a singular cause ever will be discovered? Or it ever known exactly what is really going on with it all? It's too complex, it involves too many factors. Madness is a mystery & it involves the whole mystery of consciousness & the human condition.

Schizophrenia/psychosis is also such a catch all term - & it may be describing many different things. In some people maybe their brain wiring is all messed up from birth? In others maybe it is a lot of stress & trauma? In others maybe it is spirit possession or psychic/shamanic opening/past life, karmic issues/spiritual crisis? Who really knows?

There may not be a categorical, rational answer that is understandable to the mind with such conditions? Very often 'psychosis/schizophrenia' appears to happen with people who are a lot more sensitive than others. Maybe that's it in a lot of cases - a hyper sensitivity to life?

Very good point. You should discuss this with researchers. They have so much to learn from people like us.

I don't think a single cause will ever be found. We are too complex for that.

Another good point. I have noticed the label used in that way too.

I read some articles on mental illness in Indigenous populations. Most seem to differentiate spiritual crisis from disordered thinking. Some cultures have many different "conditions" that depend on the spiritual cause such as the Maori.

The Cree of Eastern Canada used to believe an evil spirit was able to possess a person who would then crave human flesh. Cannibalism was and still is considered taboo in that culture. This possession was associated with the long northern winters, famine and starvation.

I have noticed this in myself. I also don't think it applies to everybody.

Thanks for the reply. I love conversations like this.

hey your back

"We're all born to broken people on their most honest day of living"

The Dopamine Flux
www.thedopamineflux.com

Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/MozePrayIII

I didn't think anyone would notice I took a break.

i did! your a valuable member here. other people did too.

"We're all born to broken people on their most honest day of living"

The Dopamine Flux
www.thedopamineflux.com

Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/MozePrayIII

It's nice to know people care. Thank you.

Newtus is right. Glad you're back little_didgee

*Willow*

There very much appears to be this very fixed notion/assumption that primarily 'mental illness' must be a genetically caused brain condition, especially with 'schizophrenia'. To my understanding that appears to be largely because of the current dominant biomedical/materialistic 'science'/paradigm. It's scientism.

There needs to be a metaparadigm shift towards a more expanded understanding of reality in the mainstream for there to be a genuine change, imo.

Yes. Different cultures & different times have had many understandings on madness & often made many distinctions on different types. Treatment of madness in the Golden Age of Islam is a very interesting area, it's probably the most humane treatment the mad have ever had, & there was a very in depth & comprehensive classification system used. Very little material on-line around it all, & you need some rare books to really delve into the subject at more depth.

It is fascinating how other & older cultures viewed, treated & understood such experiences.

'Madness' is such a taboo subject, & I wish that it wasn't. I wish it was a lot more openly debated & discussed. The psychological, emotional & spiritual health of individuals, nations & humanity is paramount. It is probably the single most important area there is, & yet there is such fear, ignorance & backward practices around it all. There are people that are trying to change things & create genuine dialogue - but it's not yet in the mainstream.

Came across this book the other day - 'Madness Contested' - It's one of a great many, by people that are trying to shift things to a more open & humane treatment.

http://www.behaviorismandmentalhealt...standing-book/

http://dcp.bps.org.uk/dcp/dcp-publications/clinical-psychology-forum/book-reviews/coles-keenan-%26-diamond-madness-contested$.cfm

I do also feel that as well as a dominant materialist view of the Universe & Brain, there is also a lot of religious thinking that is still very dominant in a lot of areas of society, that also very much influences & effects these areas. (as well as the dominant political/economic paradigms)

This seems pertinent to this thread as well -

Societies With Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness

Societies With Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness | Mad In America

Bruce Levine, Ph.D.

August 30, 2013
Throughout history, societies have existed with far less coercion than ours, and while these societies have had far less consumer goods and what modernity calls “efficiency,” they also have had far less mental illness. This reality has been buried, not surprisingly, by uncritical champions of modernity and mainstream psychiatry. Coercion—the use of physical, legal, chemical, psychological, financial, and other forces to gain compliance—is intrinsic to our society’s employment, schooling, and parenting. However, coercion results in fear and resentment, which are fuels for miserable marriages, unhappy families, and what we today call mental illness.

Societies with Little Coercion and Little Mental Illness

Shortly after returning from the horrors of World War I and before they wrote Mutiny on the Bounty (1932), Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall were given a commission by Harper’s Magazine to write nonfiction travel articles about life in the South Pacific. Their reports about the islands of Paumoto, Society, and the Hervey group were first serialized in Harper’s and then published in the book Faery Lands of the South Seas (1921). Nordhoff and Hall were stuck by how little coercion occurred in these island cultures compared to their own society, and they were enchanted by the kind of children that such noncoercive parenting produced:

“There is a fascination in watching these youngsters, brought up without clothes and without restraint. . . . Once they are weaned from their mothers’ breasts—which often does not occur until they have reached an age of two and a half or three —the children of the islands are left practically to shift for themselves; there is food in the house, a place to sleep, and a scrap of clothing if the weather be cool—that is the extent of parental responsibility. The child eats when it pleases, sleeps when and where it will, amuses itself with no other resources than its own. As it grows older certain light duties are expected of it—gathering fruit, lending a hand in fishing, cleaning the ground about the house—but the command to work is casually given and casually obeyed. Punishment is scarcely known. . . . [Yet] the brown youngster flourishes with astonishingly little friction—sweet tempered, cheerful, never bored, and seldom quarrelsome.”

For many indigenous peoples, even the majority rule that most Americans call democracy is problematically coercive, as it results in the minority feeling resentful. Roland Chrisjohn, member of the Oneida Nation of the Confederacy of the Haudenausaunee (Iroquois) and author of The Circle Game, points out that for his people, it is deemed valuable to spend whatever time necessary to achieve consensus so as to prevent such resentment. By the standards of Western civilization, this is highly inefficient. “Achieving consensus could take forever!” exclaimed an attendee of a talk that I heard given by Chrisjohn, who responded, “What else is there more important to do?”

Among indigenous societies, there are many accounts of a lack of mental illness, a minimum of coercion, and wisdom that coercion creates resentment which fractures relationships. The 1916 book The Institutional Care of the Insane of the United States and Canada reports, “Dr. Lillybridge of Virginia, who was employed by the government to superintend the removal of Cherokee Indians in 1827-8-9, and who saw more than 20,000 Indians and inquired much about their diseases, informs us he never saw or heard of a case of insanity among them.” Psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey, in his 1980 book Schizophrenia and Civilization, states, “Schizophrenia appears to be a disease of civilization.”
In 1973, Torrey conducted research in New Guinea, which he called “an unusually good country in which to do epidemiologic research because census records for even most remote villages are remarkably good.” Examining these records, he found, “There was over a twentyfold difference in schizophrenia prevalence among districts; those with a higher prevalence were, in general, those with the most contact with Western civilization.” In reviewing other’s research, Torrey concluded:

“Between 1828 and 1960, almost all observers who looked for psychosis or schizophrenia in technologically undeveloped areas of the world agreed that it was uncommon… The striking feature… is the remarkable consensus that insanity (in the early studies) and schizophrenia (in later studies) were comparatively uncommon prior to contact with European-American civilization… But around 1950 an interesting thing happened… the idea became current in psychiatric literature that schizophrenia occurs in about the same prevalence in all cultures and is not a disease of civilization.”

Yet Torrey is an advocate of the idea that severe mental illness is due to biological factors and not social ones, and he came to be responsible for helping build the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) into a powerful political force. How does Torrey square his ideas that mental illness is due to biological factors with his own research that shows that severe mental illness is highly associated with European-American civilization? For Torrey, “Viruses in particular should be suspect as possible agents.”

Torrey’s suspected biochemical virus agents have never been found, and so why has he not considered the toxic effects of coercion? Torrey is a strong advocate of coercive treatments, including forced medication. And so, perhaps his blindness to the ill effects of coercion compels him—even after discovering the strong relationship between European-American civilization and severe mental illness—to proclaim that mental illness could not be caused by social factors.

While Torrey researched records in New Guinea, Jared Diamond has actually worked with the New Guinea people for nearly a half century, spending extended periods of time with different groups, including those hunter-gatherer tribes in New Guinea (and other small-scale societies) whose parenting creates an abundance of nurturance and a minimum of coercion.

Diamond, in From the World Until Yesterday (2012), reports how laissez-faire parenting is “not unusual by the standards of the world’s hunter-gatherer societies, many of which consider young children to be autonomous individuals whose desires should not be thwarted.” Diamond concludes that by our society’s attempt to control children for what we believe is their own good, we discourage those traits we admire:

“Other Westerners and I are struck by the emotional security, self-*confidence, curiosity, and autonomy of members of small-scale societies, not only as adults but already as children. We see that people in small-scale societies spend far more time talking to each other than we do, and they spend no time at all on passive entertainment supplied by outsiders, such as television, videogames, and books. We are struck by the precocious development of social skills in their children. These are qualities that most of us admire, and would like to see in our own children, but we discourage development of those qualities by ranking and grading our children and constantly *telling them what to do.”

Emotional and Behavioral Effects of Coercion

Once, when doctors actually listened at length to their patients about their lives, it was obvious to many of them that coercion played a significant role in their misery. But most physicians, including psychiatrists, have stopped delving into their patients’ lives. In 2011, the New York Times (“Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns Instead to Drug Therapy”) reported, “A 2005 government survey found that just 11 percent of psychiatrists provided talk therapy to all patients.” As the article points out, psychiatrists can make far more money primarily providing “medication management,” in which they only check symptoms and adjust medication.

Since the 1980s, biochemical psychiatry in partnership with Big Pharma has come to dominate psychiatry, and they have successfully buried truths about coercion that were once obvious to professionals who actually listened at great length to their patients—obvious, for example, to Sigmund Freud (Civilization and Its Discontents (1929) and R.D. Laing (The Politics of Experience, 1967). This is not to say that Freud’s psychoanalysis and Laing’s existential approach always have been therapeutic. However, doctors who focus only on symptoms and prescribing medication will miss the obvious reality of how a variety of societal coercions can result in a cascade of family coercions, resentments, and emotional and behavioral problems.

Modernity is replete with institutional coercions not present in most indigenous cultures. This is especially true with respect to schooling and employment, which for most Americans, according to recent polls, are alienating, disengaging, and unfun. As I reported earlier this year (“Why Life in America Can Literally Drive You Insane, a Gallup poll, released in January 2013, reported that the longer students stay in school, the less engaged they become, and by high school, only 40% reported being engaged. Critics of schooling—from Henry David Thoreau, to Paul Goodman, to John Holt, to John Taylor Gatto—have understood that coercive and unengaging schooling is necessary to ensure that young people more readily accept coercive and unengaging employment. And as I also reported in that same article, a June 2013 Gallup poll revealed that 70% of Americans hate their jobs or have checked out of them.

Unengaging employment and schooling require all kinds of coercions for participation, and human beings pay a psychological price for this. In nearly three decades of clinical practice, I have found that coercion is often the source of suffering.

Here’s one situation that I’ve seen hundreds of times. An intelligent young child or teenager has been underachieving in standard school, and has begun to have emotional and/or behavioral problems. Such a child often feels coerced by standard schooling to pay attention to that which is boring for them, to do homework for which they see no value, and to stay inside a building that feels sterile and suffocating. Depending on the child’s temperament, this coercion results in different outcomes — none of them good.

Some of these kids get depressed and anxious. They worry that their lack of attention and interest will result in dire life consequences. They believe authorities’ admonitions that if they do poorly in school, they will be “flipping burgers for the rest of their lives.” It is increasingly routine for doctors to medicate these anxious and depressed kids with antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs.

Other inattentive kids are unworried. They don’t take seriously either their schooling or admonitions from authorities, and they feel justified in resisting coercion. Their rebellion is routinely labeled by mental health professionals as “acting out,” and they are diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder. Their parents often attempt punishments, which rarely work to break these kids’ resistance. Parents become frustrated and resentful that their child is causing them stress. Their child feels this parental frustration and resentment, and often experiences it as their parents not liking them. And so these kids stop liking their parents, stop caring about their parents’ feelings, and seek peers whom they believe do like them, even if these peers are engaged in criminal behaviors.

In all societies, there are coercions to behave in culturally agreed-upon ways. For example, in many indigenous cultures, there is peer pressure to be courageous and honest. However, in modernity, we have institutional coercions that compel us to behave in ways that we do not respect or value. Parents, afraid their children will lack credentials necessary for employment, routinely coerce their children to comply with coercive schooling that was unpleasant for these parents as children. And though 70% of us hate or are disengaged from our jobs, we are coerced by the fear of poverty and homelessness to seek and maintain employment.

In our society, we are taught that accepting institutional coercion is required for survival. We discover a variety of ways—including drugs and alcohol—to deny resentment. We spend much energy denying the lethal effects of coercion on relationships. And, unlike many indigenous cultures, we spend little energy creating a society with a minimal amount of coercion.

Accepting coercion as “a fact of life,” we often have little restraint in coercing others when given the opportunity. This opportunity can present itself when we find ourselves above others in an employment hierarchy and feel the safety of power; or after we have seduced our mate by being as noncoercive as possible and feel the safety of marriage. Marriages and other relationships go south in a hurry when one person becomes a coercive control freak; resentment quickly occurs in the other person, who then uses counter-coercive measures.

We can coerce with physical intimidation, constant criticism, and a variety of other means. Such coercions result in resentment, which is a poison that kills relationships and creates severe emotional problems. The Interactional Nature of Depression (1999), edited by psychologists Thomas Joiner and James Coyne, documents with hundreds of studies the interpersonal nature of depression. In one study of unhappily married women who were diagnosed with depression, 60 percent of them believed that their unhappy marriage was the primary cause of their depression. In another study, the best single predictor of depression relapse was found to be the response to a single item: “How critical is your spouse of you?”

In the 1970s, prior to the domination of the biopsychiatry-Big Pharma partnership, many mental health professionals took seriously the impact of coercion and resentful relationships on mental health. And in a cultural climate more favorable than our current one for critical reflection of society, authors such as Erich Fromm, who addressed the relationship between society and mental health, were taken seriously even within popular culture. But then psychiatry went to bed with Big Pharma and its Big Money, and their partnership has helped bury the commonsense reality that an extremely coercive society creates enormous fear and resentment, which results in miserable marriages, unhappy families, and severe emotional and behavioral problems.

I noticed.

I was born premature, but I do not think that had an effect on the development of my condition. I was a practitioner of magical arts, and expanding consciousness. It was when I started to expand my telepathic nature that I started hearing voices talking to me. My hallucinations were performed willfully at first. But after I found 'them' (the voices) they started using my magic against me, and twisted it to their dark agendas. They are very real beings, with minds and personalities of their own. I wonder about their nature, and have often described them as being spirits, or some type of inorganic being. My condition developed as a result of these beings, at least the negative symptoms did.