Med School Prof Ties Mental Illness To Child Abuse

Childhood physical and sexual abuse is more frequently at the root of major psychological problems than most psychiatrists have believed, according to a study by a Medical school professor presented in the current issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Patricla P. Ricker assistant professor of the Social Medicine and Health policy, found from investigations of family histories that 43 percent of 188 hospitalized psychiatric patients studied had been abused as children.

The result "suggests a need to change the way we take social histories" in treating patients, Ricker said yesterday, adding that psychiatrists have tended to dismiss as fantasy patients memories of abuse.

"There is a dogma of disbelief about the degree of physical and sexual abuse in patients' backgrounds," she said.

Therapists must be trained to look for abuse in patient histories and understand the role that such abuse plays is mental illness, she added, noting that many patients deny that they have been abused.

Rieker said that methods for treating such patients need to be improved.

She added that therapy is complicated when patients "lose trust in the psychiatrist due to the earlier breach of trust" between the patient and the abuser.