Mental Disorders:Literature Review of Serious

While description, predisposition and biological change pertain to the disease process, they are not proven causative, and exploration has not led to significant prevention.

Over the last century a number of descriptive scientists played an important role in the identification, description and categorization of serious mental disorders. Noteworthy descriptive scientists of the past include Emil Kraepelin, Eugene Bleuler, Gabriel Langfeld and Kurt Schneider. Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926), a German psychiatrist, categorized seriously disturbed individuals into three main groups: dementia praecox [schizophrenia], manic depressive psychosis, and paranoia. His main contribution to the field was his careful description and categorization of serious mental disorders.

I have developed the concepts further, however, describing original trauma, precipitating trauma, the return to a specific time, age and brain site, and adding the connection between psychological mechanism and biological change.
My data correlating early traumata with the later development of serious mental illness bares this out.
The most damaging of all attempts to explain the cause of schizophrenia psychologically was the attempt to blame the parent for his or her interaction with the child. My work clearly makes this distinction: When the patient returns to the infant mind/brain/reality, everyone treats the patient like an infant, and this includes many mental health professionals.
Expressed emotion in the family, referred to as the "EE" factor, was identified as the culprit, and family therapy to lower the EE factor was proven effective in reducing the relapse rate.
Two important psychological factors led to the development of family organizations: 1) strong feelings of guilt (even though unwarranted) as parents were targeted unfairly for the cause of schizophrenia, and 2) powerful psychological defense mechanisms of denial and projection, as family members could not tolerate the pain of feeling guilty.

Is Biological Change The Result Of The Disease Process?
All or nearly all biological change may be the result of the disease process. Indeed some of the biological changes may influence the process itself, but in our opinion, and according to our data, the origin is associated with early emotional trauma-and biological change, for the most part, is but the result of the disease process.
This includes biochemical, neuroendocrine, neuroanatomical, neurosynaptic, physiological, electrical impulse and conductivity, and change in the area of brain activity. While we do not dispute any of the biological changes that take place in schizophrenia, we find none to be causative in nature; instead, we view biological change as the result of the disease process.
At the same meetings, more than a dozen papers delineated changes in brain structure, including Shenton et al, Pearlson et al, Roy, De Lisi, Wyatt, Nasrallah et al, Arnold et al, Nestor et al, Shedlack et al, O'Donnell et al, Wu et al, Rossi et al, and Hokama et al.

Other presentations delineated neuroanatomical areas of hypo-and hyperactivity, including papers by Russell, Gur, and Weinberger, and neuropsychological test data was presented confirming deficits in the affected areas, including papers by Andreasen et al, Nestor et al, Silverstein et al, Frecska et al, Shedlack et al, Bark et al, and Shenton et al.
My theory explains the hypoactivity and the resultant disuse atrophy of the phylogenetically more advanced structures of the brain, and it explains the increased activity of the phylogenetically older structures as well.