Daniel Pelka

I really hate it when someone is described as "a paranoid schizophrenic."

tell me about it. When I qualified, ME, fibromyalgia, autistic spectrum, CFS, ADHD to name but a few hadn't even been heard of!

And then they change the diagnostic categories Galen ?

PIP is one good reason why I'm relieved not to be a CAB volunteer any more!

Jess when and g nan you have expressed exactly what I was trying to say.
I am not a psychiatrist but have had a lot of training in psychiatric disorders.
We are constantly attending courses, reading literature and being trained in the latest up to date information.
However our next course is on PIP which seems to be inherently nutty!

I have been greatly angered a short time ago, but a 'friend' confidently announcing that people with bi-polar disorder were mostly dangerous.

I so agree Jess and the more those words are bandied around, the more likely people are to believe that they might have these disorders and illnesses. We all have foibles and little idiosyncrasies which suddenly get turned into full blown conditions requiring treatment. If I hear one more young mum thoughtlessly announce 'I'm sure he's a bit autistic' as I did last weekend when her son wouldn't come off the bouncy castle, I won't be responsible for my actions........well I will, but you know what I mean!

Psychiatry is not a very precise science is it galen and then the world and her dog appropriate the terminology with flagrant abandon.

Yes, but often they refuse treatment or will not co operate.

I'm sure you will agree that drug addicts and alcoholics need help too.

I don't need telling anything about depression, but thank you for your input.

Well said Galen

If you mean me Jingle yes I am. I'm well known for being a gentle, sympathetic and empathic questioner.
What I'm objecting to is the generalised misuse of psychiatric terms!
This leads to misunderstandings in the general public which can cause harm to genuine sufferers.
Another misuse is the term depression which is quite often used to describe just feeling a bit low rather than true depression which as anybody who has suffered from it knows is an extremely unpleasant and debilitating illness.
Incidentally the people use the term 'paranoid' are usually the drug addicts and alcoholics.

I would hope that people in important positions show some understanding to distressed beings who know they feel paranoid, but cannot actually express what the word usually means.

That's a very good illustration Jess. (very sad too)

The thing we now know about genes is that they may or may not be expressed. 3 sisters might have one of the known breast cancer genes. One might develop cancer more than once, one might develop it once and the other never. Many factors determine whether or not individual genes are expressed. So if there is a "depression gene" it will not mean that it is anything like 100% predictive of developing depression.
A friend of mine in the US adopted a child whose mother had been taking crack amphetamines etc during pregnancy. There then followed 2 years of abuse. Despite loving parenting since the age of 2 she is a very damaged young woman with severe learning difficulties and mental illness. How would you pick out the effect of genes in this scenario?

Yes, I know that Galen.

Was being light hearted there.

(Which was NOT meant to take away from the seriousness of this thread (before the usual happens )

Off to work now.
Be good.
Love one another!

Yes, Galen if we check, we all have a few traits of the characteristics that go to make a personality disorder, but it's the accumulations/clusters of multiple traits that differentiate. We can all score a few ticks on the Psychopathy Checklist, but it's the high scores that are signifcant.

Jingle can we differentiate please between personality traits and personality disorders. They are very different things.
I hate the way that 'paranoid' gets misused. Many of my claimants state that they get paranoid and when questioned have no idea what they mean!

It's less usual for sexually abused children to become abusers themselves, Jen. More likely that they learn they were treated badly and become strong advocates for the protection of children, especially their own. Less clear cut with family violence, but still a higher proportion determine not to be violent towards their children, which is borne out in society's views about hitting children.

Whatever happens to you in childhood, whether you are brought up in a loving environment or sexually or physically abused, you tend to think that it is normal, that it's how everyone else is brought up. So it is possible that you may continue in the same vein, abusing your children. It does not make it genetic. In fact in lots of cases, it's the step-parent that abuses the child, who may then think that's the normal way to behave.

Thanks j08 - a bit of light bedtime reading

That's interesting about damage at birth when. It may explain a lot about an ex-boss I had who definitely displayed psychopathic traits (he was charm itself!) and the birth damage idea could be a factor in his case.

this might be of interest to when and nightowl

Or anybody really.

It's quite reassuring actually. (second paragraph in)

Should have added, Hare doesn't think damage to the brain later in life causes psychopathy, although some do become violent following such trauma.