About a schizophrenogenic mother. Madness: Family Roots

The views expressed in the book “Madness: Family Roots” by R. D. Lang and A. Esterson aroused considerable interest in the professional community and a wide response, since they are radical and contradict the generally accepted point of view on such a well-known disease as schizophrenia. Meanwhile, the ideas are supported by research that was conducted by the authors in 1956.

“Understand, friends, I know nothing about who I am and where I came from into the dark world. I remember myself only at the court of my beautiful queen. I think she saved me from some evil spell and brought me here out of generosity... Even now I am under a spell from which only she can free me. Every night there comes an hour when my mind betrays me, and after my mind, my body. I get so mad that I could attack my best friend and kill him if I weren't tied up. And then I turn into a monster, into a huge snake, hungry, vile and evil... That’s what everyone tells me, and this, of course, is true, for she says the same thing.” Clive S. Lewis "The Silver Throne" The Chronicles of Narnia".

Revolutionary ideas in psychiatry

The main idea covered in the book is the connection between mental illnesses, primarily schizophrenia, and the patient’s family, and more precisely, their origin from there.

The authors of the book make a revolutionary statement for their time: schizophrenia, in fact, is not an existing disease, it is a set of symptoms, probably partially or completely socially determined. They essentially completely deny schizophrenia as a diagnosis, proposing something else instead.

“We use the expression “schizophrenic” to mean a person whose experiences or behavior are clinically considered to be manifestations of “schizophrenia.” In other words, a person with such a diagnosis is assigned experiences and behavior that are not simply human, but are the result of some pathological process, processes of mental and/or physical origin. It is clear that “schizophrenia” is a social phenomenon, since at least one percent of the population can be diagnosed as “schizophrenic” if these people live long enough” [1, p. 11].

In support of their theory, Lang and Esterson cite the first works on the study of schizophrenia from the times when this disease was just described and the professional community had not yet accepted this diagnosis as a given; many authors expressed justified doubts that such a disease was worth highlighting. Among them is E. Bleuler with his monograph “Daementia praecox oder Gruppe der Schizophrenien”, 1910 (“Dementia praecox, or group of schizophrenias”, Dementia praecox from Latin - Previously dementia).

What determines whether a child gets sick or not?

If a child really decides to give up his independence in order to please his mother, he does not actually turn into a doll, but remains a person - and will remain so until his death.

What is going on in his soul? He still needs to feel like someone, although in reality he is nobody and nothing, because he himself decided so.

Then he begins to fantasize . He invents himself and a life that does not exist, begins to believe in it, as if it were all real. The connection between his fantasies and real behavior is lost.

In reality, he is a manipulated, albeit biologically alive, doll. But inside himself he is different. This phenomenon in psychiatry is called “split personality”. It is appropriate to recall that “schizo” means “to split into pieces,” and “phrenos” means “head” (in a figurative sense, “soul”).

So a person ceases to be an integral personality, which is a characteristic feature of any healthy person . This person consists of at least two pieces that are not connected to each other and may not even know anything about each other.

This is already a schizoid psychopath. If left untreated, the disease will progress to the clinical stage.

However, there is always a chance. The child can be helped by friends in the yard (if there are any). His favorite activity (if he has found it) can help him. An adult friend can help him (if he has one).

He can be helped by internal resistance to his mother’s influence (this is theoretically possible, but in practice it is very rare). But if there is nothing to grab onto, the chances of falling into illness are very high .

Research by R. D. Lang and A. Esterson

The study recruited 11 women who had been formally diagnosed with schizophrenia. To the authors of the book, this number seems quite sufficient to confirm their theory.

Throughout the book, the idea is developed that the behavior of the subjects, defined by doctors as manifestations of schizophrenia, is actually caused by the dysfunctional relationships that have developed in their families. This behavior was natural and the only possible for them in this situation, because, in fact, they were left with no other choice. Having reviewed the cases presented in the following chapters, we can conclude that this is indeed the case or very close to it.

It is worth saying a few words about the sample: all subjects are young (under 30 years old) women who grew up in two-parent families with average and high incomes. They did not have any organic disorders, they did not undergo neurosurgical operations. For some of them, the first signs of schizophrenia appeared in childhood, for others - in adolescence and older. All of them were officially diagnosed with schizophrenia based on the following symptoms:

hallucinations;
delusions of influence, persecution, paranoid delusions, etc.;
incoherence of thinking;
cognitive disorders;
catatonia;
disorders of the affective-volitional sphere;
behavioral disorders.

All patients were hospitalized for treatment in a psychiatric hospital. The list of drugs prescribed to them is not provided in detail, but it is indicated that some were prescribed electric shocks.

Interviews were conducted with patients and their families, together or separately. For each case, a list is provided, the composition and number of hours of interviews, as well as the most interesting parts of them, which allow us to reveal the essence of the patients’ relationship with their relatives.

Clinical cases: similarities and examples

After reading the book, it becomes clear that the 11 families described have some similar characteristics. They are repeated in all or several cases from the selected group. Among these signs are the following:

Difficult communications between daughter and mother or both parents, consisting in the ambiguity of the transmitted messages. This is denial or devaluation of existing facts, false interpretation, double messages that contradict each other, so-called gaslighting.

For example, the first case described is a patient named Maya:

“As Maya said, her father “... often laughed at what I said to him, and I could not understand what he was laughing at. I thought this was very offensive... I told my dad about school, and he laughed at my words. If I told him about my dreams, he laughed and told me not to take them seriously...” [1, p. 33].

The case of another girl, Claire Church:

“Mrs. Church only managed with great difficulty to maintain the impression that they were “very similar... To see the resemblance approaching identification, Mrs. Church had to deny her own perceptions, encourage Claire to deny her feelings and so change her words, gestures, movements so that they did not very much contradicted the image of the daughter drawn by the mother” [1, p. 83].

Sarah Danzig's family:

“We first had to explain why this girl is so naive. One could assume... that the attempts of family members to mystify her, to deceive her, were a consequence of this naivety. This was partly true. But our data suggests that her very naivety is the result of previous deceptions and hoaxes. Thus, the family was drawn into a vicious circle. The more Sarah was mystified, the more naive she became, and the more naive she was, the more clearly it became necessary for family members to protect themselves from this naivety by deceiving the girl” [1, p. 124].

In the family of another patient, Ruby Eden, there was even confusion about who was who and who was related to whom: she had to call her biological mother “mom” and her aunt “mother”, her father “uncle”, and her uncle “dad”.

“Ruby and her mother lived with her mother’s married sister, that sister’s husband (father or uncle), and their son (cousin). Her father (uncle) was married, lived with another family somewhere else and visited them only occasionally. There were furious arguments in the family over whether Ruby knew who she really was” [1, p. 140].

This attitude undoubtedly greatly disorientated the patients, so that they sometimes could not distinguish the objective reality from the one created in such dysfunctional communication.

Family as a closed system. In some of the described cases, patients were prohibited from leading a social life and communicating with people outside the family, as this was declared dangerous.

The case of Lucy Blair described:

“Mrs. Blair said that her husband watched Lucy’s every move, demanded that she account for every minute she spent outside the house, told her that if she left the house she would be kidnapped, raped or killed... He (and his brother , mother, sister and sister-in-law) terrorized Lucy with stories of what would happen if she left the "safety" of home. He believed that it would be useful for her to “toughen up” in this way” [1, p. 54].

In some cases, patients, when removed from their families and placed in a different environment, began to feel significantly better. As in the case of patient June Field:

“Having returned from the camp, she for the first time began to express her true attitude towards herself, towards her mother, towards school activities, towards God, towards other people and so on... Only her mother saw in this a manifestation of the disease...” [1, P. 160].

Strict boundaries and restrictions. Some families (like the patients themselves) were very religious, others had strict moral principles and rules that were extremely difficult to follow.

An example from the case of patient Sarah Danzig, whose parents were Orthodox Jews:

“Sarah... had to direct her thoughts and actions in strict accordance with Mr. Danzig's obsessive interpretation of religious orthodoxy. Taking advantage of Sarah's social naivety, the family demanded complete obedience only from her. And she could not compare the praxis of her parents with the praxis of other people, since all her contacts, besides her family, were cut off” [1, p. 129].

Another patient, Jean Head, had parents who were zealous fundamentalist nonconformists. Their views and beliefs are so contrary to the needs and behavior of a living person that Jean develops two personalities: one for the house and one for herself. And when the pressure becomes unbearable, she has a delusional idea that her parents are dead:

“There is probably no other group in society whose members expect more of themselves in some respects. By forming families and thereby leading a sexual life... people like the Heads and their parents consider any sexual fantasy a sin, even in relation to their marriage partner. Expressing sexual thoughts towards any person is strictly prohibited. (...) They claim that they never quarrel or get angry. (...) The main goal of life is to glorify the Lord, but children need to be taught in secular schools and they need to acquire “base” technological knowledge in order to win... in a competitive society” [1, P. 192].

The parents' negative attitude towards the patients' sexuality was emphasized: it was either denied, condemned, or declared to be something abnormal.

An example from Lucy's case:

“Evidently Mr. Blair did not consider his anxiety about his wife and daughter to be excessive, and it was clear to us what he wanted his daughter to be - a pure, virginal, single lady. Rare instances of physical and frequent manifestations of verbal violence against her were justified by his view of her as a sexually promiscuous woman... Her daughter betrayed him with her sexuality” [1, p. 67].

Another patient, Maya, also spoke in an interview about her sexual thoughts regarding her father and mother. The parents denied everything: “It didn’t happen.”

In the case of patient Ruby Eden, her family reacted to her pregnancy in a very unique way:

“As soon as they heard about this from Ruby, her mother and mother sat her down on the sofa in the living room and, trying to pour soapy water into her womb, with tears in their eyes, reproachfully, pitifully and vindictively began to explain to her what a fool she was, what a whore she was. , what a loser she is... what a pig this guy is, what a shame..." [1, P. 142].

Increased attention to the patient’s personality and actions, discussion of her, the desire to take part in all her affairs, “live her life.” Blurred, unclear personal boundaries, total control, even delusional ideas of direct or indirect influence on thoughts and personality. This, in turn, could cause delusions of influence.

Example from Maya's case:

“My mother complained to us that Maya did not want to understand her, my father felt the same, and both were very offended that Maya did not tell them anything about herself. Their reaction to this is curious: it began to seem to them that Maya had some special insight. They were convinced that she was able to read their thoughts” [1, p. 33].

The following describes the “experiments in mind reading” that Maya’s parents regularly conducted without telling her anything about it, and she herself did the same with them. The family supported the idea that family members could penetrate each other's thoughts. The consequences were predictable:

“Clinically, she suffered from the idea of influence.” She repeatedly repeated that, contrary to her wishes, she had an unfavorable influence on those around her, and they also had a detrimental effect on her - despite her resistance" [1, p. 34].

Total control of actions is clearly visible in the case of patient June Field:

“My parents didn’t give June pocket money, but they said they would if June told her what it was for... She had to give an account of her smallest acquisitions. One day... June found a shilling at the cinema, and her parents forced her to give the shilling to the management. June said that this was absurd, that it was “going too far in honesty, that if she herself had lost a shilling, she would not expect it to be returned to her. But her parents talked about it the whole next day, and in the evening her father came to her room to continue admonishing her” [1, p. 167].

Many patients really constantly felt under close attention and control, and noticed these attempts to influence them. But since they were very disoriented and much of what was actually being done was denied by their parents, all this was perceived as delirium, confusion of thinking, etc.

Another example from the case of Lucy Blair, illustrating the patient’s perception of the world:

“I don't believe what I see. This has no backing. Nothing confirms this in any way - everything just happens in front of me. I think that's my problem. Everything I can say is not backed up... I don't think I understand my actual situation... I'm not sure what people are saying, or if they are saying anything at all. I don’t know what exactly is bad, if there is something bad” [1, p. 57].

Meaning of the term

First of all, it is important to understand that the most schizophrenogenic mothers sometimes grow up to have absolutely healthy children .

And in the most normal, completely healthy and happy families, there are cases of schizophrenia in children.

That is, no behavior of a mother automatically leads to illness in her child. There is no strict determinism here. We are talking only about statistical patterns.

Let's say, the chances of a son or daughter getting sick, if their mother treats them correctly, raises them correctly, loves them, is about tenths of a percent. In a child of a schizophrenogenic mother, they can approach 70-80%. However, we all destroy ourselves and save ourselves.

Psychiatrists and psychologists have an expression - “going into illness.” So, when we become mentally ill, it is always precisely “going into illness.” That is, we do it ourselves: we ourselves go into illness - and not someone pushes us there.

Man by nature is an internally free being: he chooses his own path . However, the chances of choosing this particular path - the path to illness - for the son or daughter of such a mother, which will be discussed here, are very high. For those growing up in a healthy family, they are negligible.

A mother can provoke illness through her attitude towards the child and her behavior. But it is not her mother who calls her, but, oddly enough, the patient himself. This is his own decision, albeit unconscious.

And the second very important point. Such a woman is not a villain or a criminal at all. She herself is sick and needs help.

True, in the overwhelming majority, such women, who unwittingly provoke their children to go into illness, are mentally quite healthy . But they all have serious internal, psychological problems.

It is the unresolvedness of these problems that leads to the wrong attitude towards your child.

A woman harming her children: yes, this is terrible. But she herself also suffers. She does evil, but at the same time she is a victim.

She can't be blamed. She needs understanding and sympathy . She is in trouble: along with her child.

Who is a schizophrenic? Read about it here.

Schizophrenogenic mother or both parents?

The idea of a schizophrenogenic mother arose around the same years when this book was written - it was first expressed by Frieda Fromm-Reichmann in 1948. Such a mother, as described by Fromm-Reichman, is cold and dominant, selfish, striving for complete control over the child’s behavior. Its behavior involves a special pattern called double bind, which means two statements that contradict each other. In the above cases, it is clear that such patterns occurred quite often in the families of patients, for example, when they were required to be independent and at the same time limited in everything, allowed to meet boys and at the same time condemned any sexual manifestations, etc.

However, Fromm-Reichman's theory has not received scientific confirmation. In the cases cited in the book, moreover, we are not talking about the behavior of the mother alone: all relatives participate in shaping the attitude of the sick. So, rather, we can talk about a schizophrenogenic family, dysfunctional relationships and the environment that provokes the disease.

Schizophrenogenic father

Fathers rarely, compared to mothers, provoke the disease. However, it is possible. Such a father, if he has a daughter, rejects her: he clearly does not love her, is not interested in her, does not take part in her life. He is a father only formally. In fact, this is a stranger.

If he has a boy, the father provokes illness when he makes impossible demands on his son and severely punishes him for failure to fulfill them, especially if these punishments are associated with violence against the child’s personality and humiliation.

Also provoking, from the outside, is the exact opposite behavior of the father towards his son: conniving, spineless, without any demands. He also calls such men “rags.” You can't rely on such a father. This is also not the real father.

Schizophrenia and heredity: modern research

Schizophrenia is considered a hereditary disease: if one of your close or distant relatives had schizophrenia, then the patient has a predisposition. The closer the relatives have had schizophrenia, the more likely it is that the symptoms of the disease will reappear in that family. However, there is a very subtle and ambiguous point here: is schizophrenia transmitted genetically or are there still certain behavioral patterns? The authors of the book develop the second version.

The question of the emergence and heterogeneity of manifestations of schizophrenia has occupied the minds of scientists around the world for many years. The main areas of research are the etiology of schizophrenia, the study of the genesis of clinical polymorphism and pharmacological studies. That is, to put it in simpler terms, scientists are interested in the following: where does schizophrenia come from, why do its symptoms vary so much from case to case, and how can it be cured?

To date, the following facts are reliably known:

children with two sick parents have a risk of developing the disease of 41-46%, this risk is even more pronounced in identical twins: 47-48%;
parents of children with schizophrenia have pronounced schizoid personality traits, their cognitive characteristics are very similar to those of patients, and approximately 20-30% of relatives of diagnosed schizophrenics have so-called “spectrum disorders”, which are weakened symptoms of schizophrenia or sharpened personality traits;
Children with schizophrenia and their parents exhibit the same biochemical and immunological abnormalities [5].

All this may indicate that the disease does indeed run in the family, and perhaps has a genetic origin, but until recently the schizophrenia gene had not been identified. However, everything changed last year, after publication in the journal Nature, where it was reported that the schizophrenia gene was finally discovered by scientists: it was the C4 protein, localized in neuronal processes, synapses and cell bodies. In mice, C4 indirectly affected the elimination of synapses during the postnatal period of development.

“Structurally diverse alleles of the C4 complement component genes generate different levels of C4A and C4B expression in the brain, with each common C4 allele being associated with schizophrenia in proportion to its tendency to generate greater expression of C4A,” reports a team of US scientists led by Stephen McCarroll of the Broad Institute at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [2]. This study aims to explain why the number of neural connections is reduced in patients with schizophrenia.

However, not everything is so simple: the discovery of the C4 gene only brought scientists a little closer to understanding the biological mechanisms of the disease, but is not clear evidence of the genetic origin of schizophrenia. Since the manifestations of the disease are very diverse, there are also many genetic abnormalities that are present in some cases and absent in others.

Main features

The strangest feature of such a woman, from an everyday point of view, is that she is an extremely caring mother.

True, there is also the opposite type of such a mother : psychologists call him “rejecting.” Such a mother openly hates her child, constantly scolds, criticizes, ignores. But this type is extremely rare these days.

Now almost all such women are distinguished by their exaggerated concern for children. However, if you carefully analyze the relationship of such a mother with her children, it becomes clear that she does not experience any joy from communicating with them.

Olga, whose portrait is given above, by the way, also writes popular articles for parents (her magazine is a glossy magazine for parents), in which she often calls caring for children “work and responsibility .

For her, this is not the joy of human communication, not happiness - but hard labor, hard work.

We can easily notice that exaggerated care for a child is not a consequence of great love for him.

Moreover, such a mother never really loves her child and does not know how to love . And deep down he feels it. Sometimes she is even full of hostility towards her baby, hidden from her.

To hide this from herself, she takes care of the children so fanatically. This is a kind of self-hypnosis. The woman inspires herself: “I am a wonderful mother. I give all of myself to the children." However, we can just as easily notice that not only the mother herself does not look happy at all, but also her children, licked from head to toe.

Such women are prone to connivance, even outright self-indulgence. They turn a blind eye to many things in their children that would not pass the attention of a healthy mother, for which she would scold and punish the children. But at the same time, such women are despotic.

They strive to control literally every step of the child, they want to achieve unconditional obedience from him. In fact, their goal is to turn the baby into a dead doll that can be manipulated at will.

If the child resists, such a mother seeks in a variety of ways to break him and make him submissive. It's not always hard pressure. Sometimes the mother cries and pretends to be sick in order to “play for pity.”

If we talk to such a woman about her child, whom we know at least a little, we will find that she, his mother, knows almost nothing about him . That is, she knows many facts from his life, his external features, but his inner world is completely incomprehensible to her, she does not understand him as a person.

At the same time, it seems to the mother that she knows her child, but in fact in her mind there is a fantasy image invented by herself, which has nothing to do with reality.

It is with this imaginary baby that she builds a relationship, ignoring the real child .

So, the main features of a schizophrenogenic mother:

She has not been able to arrange her personal life, she is unhappy.
She does not know how to build relationships with children, communicates little with them informally, but at the same time surrounds them with exaggerated care.
It does not give the child freedom, independence, and demands unconditional obedience from him.
She actually does not love her child and is not interested in his inner world, his human characteristics.

How to recognize schizophrenia in women? Find out the answer right now.

Research prospects

Currently, many researchers of schizophrenia, as well as advocates for the interests of patients, are still inclined to believe that this is not a general disease, but only a set of specific symptoms. Many even refuse the definition of “schizophrenia,” believing that such a diagnosis stigmatizes the patient and does not reveal anything about his personality [3].

Many front-line physicians recommend increasing funding for non-medical approaches such as family therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Also, many have expressed doubts about the correctness of the idea of inheritance of the disease, which appeared mainly due to family and twin studies. These scientists and doctors are inclined to believe that the development of schizophrenia is predominantly influenced by the environment, personal and family circumstances, experienced stress and mental trauma, especially those received in childhood.

Why does this behavior provoke illness?

A growing person faces certain challenges. First of all, this is a task - to find yourself, to become established as a person, a person and an individual . Every child is pushed on this path by his human nature.

However, the little man is extremely dependent on his mother. He literally cannot do without her for a day; he is connected to her by a psychological umbilical cord.

And his mother, his support, his hope, his closest being, his earthly God, actually demands from him: don’t be a man. Become my doll that I will manipulate. Give up yourself to please me. Then I will be happy with you.

Choosing the path of development means finding yourself in conflict not only with your mother (although this is unbearable for most children), but also with yourself.

After all, a kind of deification of parents is a characteristic feature of the psychology of all children.

Therefore, this position of the mother pushes the baby onto another path (and there is no third way) - self-denial . This is the path to illness.