two years asking her, “What do you think?” Another psychiatrist gave her open prescriptions for highly addictive drugs, and the third psychiatrist wanted to use electroconvulsive therapy, probably the worst possible treatment for trauma survivors. The family therapistSome authorities say that up to 60 percent of psychiatric patients, both in-patient and out-patient, report childhood histories of physical or sexual abuse or both. This estimate excludes emotional abuse and neglect. My experience confirms that very many patients are suffering from PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) as a direct result of childhood maltreatment. But they do not know what their real problem is.

Psychologists and psychiatrists know what to expect in the way of symptoms with war veterans: PTSD. We know as fact that the experiences of war can produce in even the strongest individual the constellation of symptoms that therapists should recognize as trauma. But for some reason, we have only begun to make this same connection with people whose lives have been a “war.”

One woman, who spent nearly 20 years in therapy, first with an educational counselor, then three psychiatrists, plus a family therapist, found herself with suicidal feelings right up to the time she entered our group for domestic abuse. One psychiatrist, an analyst, spent two years asking her, “What do you think?” Another psychiatrist gave her open prescriptions for highly addictive drugs, and the third psychiatrist wanted to use electroconvulsive therapy, probably the worst possible treatment for trauma survivors. The family therapist

suffering from PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) as a direct result of childhood maltreatment. But they do not know what their real problem is.

Psychologists and psychiatrists know what to expect in the way of symptoms with war veterans: PTSD. We know as fact that the experiences of war can produce in even the strongest individual the constellation of symptoms that therapists should recognize as trauma. But for some reason, we have only begun to make this same connection with people whose lives have been a “war.”

One woman, who spent nearly 20 years in therapy, first with an educational counselor, then three psychiatrists, plus a family therapist, found herself with suicidal feelings right up to the time she entered our group for domestic abuse. One psychiatrist, an analyst, spent two years asking her, “What do you think?” Another psychiatrist gave her open prescriptions for highly addictive drugs, and the third psychiatrist wanted to use electroconvulsive therapy, probably the worst possible treatment for trauma survivors. The family therapist

that the experiences of war can produce in even the strongest individual the constellation of symptoms that therapists should recognize as trauma. But for some reason, we have only begun to make this same connection with people whose lives have been a “war.”

One woman, who spent nearly 20 years in therapy, first with an educational counselor, then three psychiatrists, plus a family therapist, found herself with suicidal feelings right up to the time she entered our group for domestic abuse. One psychiatrist, an analyst, spent two years asking her, “What do you think?” Another psychiatrist gave her open prescriptions for highly addictive drugs, and the third psychiatrist wanted to use electroconvulsive therapy, probably the worst possible treatment for trauma survivors. The family therapist

woman, who spent nearly 20 years in therapy, first with an educational counselor, then three psychiatrists, plus a family therapist, found herself with suicidal feelings right up to the time she entered our group for domestic abuse. One psychiatrist, an analyst, spent two years asking her, “What do you think?” Another psychiatrist gave her open prescriptions for highly addictive drugs, and the third psychiatrist wanted to use electroconvulsive therapy, probably the worst possible treatment for trauma survivors. The family therapisttwo years asking her, “What do you think?” Another psychiatrist gave her open prescriptions for highly addictive drugs, and the third psychiatrist wanted to use electroconvulsive therapy, probably the worst possible treatment for trauma survivors. The family therapist ordered her to draw a family geneology chart.

None of the above professionals seemed determined to find the cause of her suffering; they just had their favorite ways of treating symptoms. Her real problem had been nightly incest at the hands of her biological father, the rejection by her mother as a result, and constant debasing comments by both parents and both sisters all of her life. Not even her head-banging, a dead giveaway for sexual abuse, was noticed.

Another woman was in treatment for thirty years for depression and a “borderline personality disorder,” ten of these years with the same psychiatrist. When the decade had passed, he remarked, “I really don’t think I can help you.” Never was her sadistically violent tormentor, her husband, ever seen or even asked about. She in no way had a borderline personality disorder, but she was indeed suffering from PTSD as a result of life-long abuse.

None of her therapists had been interested in causality. A disinterest in root cause is, in my opinion, the greatest weakness in the mental-health