Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

A Wall Street Journal article ('A Scientist's Final Quest Is to Find New Schizophrenia Drugs. Will He Live to See Them?' Nov. 26, 2024) aroused several thoughts - Schizophrenia is vastly misdiagnosed particularly amongst those with substance abuse problems. Knowledge of child psychological development and developmental psychopathology is gravely lacking among professionals. Psychotropic drugs produce severe side effects, which are termed "improvement," and can be hard to stop. Closing of the state psychiatric hospitals, which despite their inadequacies were safe, had its promised savings go into state general coffers and not the out-patient services promised. Another disastrous element is the FDA's belief and wasted billions in drug treatments, worthless genetic research, and electrical gadgets for basically psychological disturbances. The genesis of schizophrenia in terms of faulty early life ego development has been understood for decades--by those who want to know!

Yesterday's article on Ozempic in The Wall Street Journal ("A 12-Year-Old's Journey Into the World of Ozempic. A mother found success with a weight-loss drug after a lifelong battle. Noticing her daughter start down the same path...") aroused several thoughts.

The baby's first source of food is their mother and they later learn eating habits from their family. Children with eating disturbances tend to develop in families where food serves other purposes beside nourishment.

Anorexia (which has the highest death rate of all mental health disorders) and Bulimia develop in children where eating becomes entwined with their healthy desire for autonomy, which is resisted by their mother. Thus, control over eating for the child serves their emotional need of exhibiting their independence and, once created, is difficult to treat as it entwines with fanciful notions about beauty, nutrition, and exercise. Obsessive-compulsive exercising has its own motivation since, as reflecting an ego defense against anxiety, it serves to reduce the continuing anxiety of the anorexic/bulimic child.

Sadly, many doctors ignore the family underpinnings of these behavioral disturbances.

Some marital conflicts may arise from one partner seeking to heal their early developmental deficits through interaction with the other partner. Those who lacked a loving supportive parenting experience may seek this from their spouse, not recognizing its unconscious elements. Because of this, the partner may respond inappropriately, describing the behavior as silly or babyish, unworthy of a mature adult.

While the healing of these emotional deficits are best done through psychotherapy during which unconscious motives are recognized and their affect on behavior reduced, this is not to say that a supportive, loving relationship cannot provide its own healing element