Talking About Tough Issues: Drug Abuse

Some of the suggestions for talking about drug abuse and physical abuse and mental illness may also be adapted to talk about neglect, whether the neglect is due to maternal depression, or to birthparents’ seeming lack of knowledge of children’s needs, or their seeming inability to care for another. In early childhood: “Your mother took a kind of medicine that wasn’t given her by a doctor. She thought it would make her feel good, but it was bad medicine. It made her sleepy so she couldn’t take good care of you.” In elementary school: Your mother took bad drugs that … Continue reading

Talking About Tough Questions

Adoption, under the best possible circumstances, involves loss. Few birthparents deliberately plan to have a child they will have to let someone else parent. Adoptive parents, like all parents, want to shield their children from sadness and from things they think may be damaging to their self-esteem. However, the loss of trust in their parents that secrecy creates is potentially more damaging than the original losses. Books such as Lois Melina’s Making Sense of Adoption and Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child, by Betsy Keefer and Jayne Schooler, recommend age-appropriate ways of conveying a child’s story to … Continue reading

Understanding Psychosis

The phenomenon of psychosis affects a person’s thoughts, perceptions, emotions and consequently, behavior. Around 3% of the population will experience psychosis during the course of their lifetime, so the condition cannot be regarded as rare. However one in one hundred people who suffer from psychosis will only have one event. The remainder will go on to have many breaks with reality and be in need of medical intervention. It is likely that you know someone who has had a psychotic episode. A person experiencing a psychotic episode will have disordered thought patterns and experience difficulty in distinguishing what is reality … Continue reading

Would You Drug Test Your Child?

Would you drug test your own child? As parents, we want to think that if we equip our kids with the necessary information about the evils of drug and alcohol use, they will always make the right decision and just say “no”. However, the reality of the situation is that no matter how effective you are as a parent, the possibility that your child will say “yes” is very real. It’s not a reflection on your parenting skills. Drug abuse affects families both rich and poor. It crosses all ethnic backgrounds and affects males as well as females. So would … Continue reading

Schizophrenia and VCFS

Never heard of VCFS? You’re not alone. VCFS (Velo-cardio-facial syndrome) is a relatively rare illness affecting one in 5000 children and can remain undiagnosed for years, putting strain on both sufferers and their families. The interesting aspect of this condition for researchers is that children with VCFS have an almost one in three chance of developing schizophrenia, the latter generally first manifesting between the ages of 15 and 25. VCFS has been a subject of genetic studies and has been isolated to an abnormality on chromosome 22, which in turn assists researchers in the area of schizophrenia to better understand … Continue reading

Symptoms of schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is such a complex illness that diagnosis can be delayed due to the confusing array of behaviors that characterize the condition. However, because it is an illness that mostly strikes in the late teens and early twenties, it is important to be informed of the symptoms of this erratic and disturbing illness. People who suffer from schizophrenia do not all display the same types of symptoms. Not only do they vary from person to person, but they differ for the same person over time. Often correct diagnosis and appropriate treatment can be delayed for this reason. In some cases, … Continue reading

The minefield of schizophrenia (2)

In this blog, we continue with simple, concise explanations of much of the language and terminology used by mental health professionals in the treatment of schizophrenia. • Hearing voices A type of hallucination in which the sufferer hears voices, or hears his or her own thoughts actually spoken aloud, or other sounds that no-one else can hear. Often several voices may occur at once, causing acute stress for the sufferer. The voices are invariable negative in tone. • Maintenance therapy Treatment which is aimed at the reduction of relapse and may include regular hospital in-patient admissions in an attempt to … Continue reading

The minefield of schizophrenia (1)

Having a family member diagnosed with schizophrenia is distressing enough, but having to deal with the terminology and language of schizophrenia can be a nightmare in its own right. Here is a short glossary of terms that are frequently used by mental health professionals to describe the common characteristics of this puzzling and disturbing illness. • Acute episode The period of the illness when severe symptoms, including hallucinations and delusions, are experienced. • Affect A synonym for “mood” and refers to the outward expression of emotion. Persons suffering from schizophrenia may be described as having “flat effect” meaning that little … Continue reading

Schizophrenia: Diagnostic Symptoms

Schizophrenia is a very complex disorder and affects many or all of the functions that we rely on to successfully get through each day. The condition typically includes delusions (irrational beliefs) and hallucinations (sensory experiences in the absence of actual events). Schizophrenia is also one of the disorders that include psychotic episodes. We will look at a couple of case studies of people suffering from this disorder in future blogs. Meanwhile, we will look at the symptomology of this puzzling and tragic illness. The DSM-IV-TR lists the following criteria for a positive diagnosis of schizophrenia: 1. Two or more of … Continue reading

What is Schizophrenia?

The public misconception of a schizophrenia sufferer as having a “split personality” has been pushed by Hollywood and novelists alike. Sufferers of this serious mental illness do not possess dual personalities, but the unfortunate stigma that is attached to schizophrenia and mental illness in general often precludes the general public having a thorough understanding of what this complex condition is all about. Schizophrenia affects roughly one in every hundred people, so it is hardly a rare illness. This proportion is consistent around the world, occurring in similar ratios in all races and socio-economic groups. It is no respecter of status … Continue reading