Schizophrenia: Innovations in Diagnosis and Treatment [Hardcover]

Colin Ross (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 2004

Learn about a pioneering alternative to antipsychotic medication for schizophrenia!

In Schizophrenia: Innovations in Diagnosis and Treatment, Dr. Colin A. Ross—founder of the Colin A. Ross Institute for Psychological Trauma—presents a new theory of the existence of a dissociative subtype of schizophrenia. Dr. Ross determines that some patients diagnosed with schizophrenia have symptoms closely related to dissociative identity disorder—or multiple personality disorder—and have a history of psychological trauma. In these cases, this unprecedented book proposes that the disorder is treatable—perhaps even curable—using psychotherapy rather than drugs.

Schizophrenia: Innovations in Diagnosis and Treatment will revolutionize the profession of psychology with data, arguments, and a review of previously published literature to support Dr. Ross’s theory. Traditionally, schizophrenia is considered manageable only by a lifetime of psychotropic drugs—expensive, harmful, and often ineffectual. This book offers an alternative free of damaging chemicals to improve quality of life for patients with schizophrenia whose symptoms may be trauma-based.

Schizophrenia: Innovations in Diagnosis and Treatment offers specific, detailed ideas and research on:

• genetic studies showing that while there is a genetic connection, it is not prevalent enough for biology to be the only predisposing factor in all cases of schizophrenia
• a comparison of the definitions of psychosis, schizophrenia, and dissociation—from the DSM-IV-TR and other texts—to determine relationships between the three disorders
• proposed diagnostic criteria for dissociative schizophrenia—dissociative amnesia, depersonalization, the presence of two or more distinct personalities/identities, auditory hallucinations, extensive comorbidity, and severe childhood trauma
• the principles of psychotherapy for dissociative schizophrenia—when to start therapy, trauma therapy, how to establish communication with the patient, and therapeutic neutrality
• and more!

With an extensive bibliography of literatures on trauma, dissociation, and psychosis, as well as numerous tables and case studies, this volume presents a strong case for a fresh methodology in the treatment of this psychological abnormality. The theory provided by Dr. Ross brings hope for recovery to individuals with dissociative schizophrenia. This one-of-a-kind book is a must-read for psychiatrists, psychologists, and other professionals involved in research and/or treatment of schizophrenia. Its comprehensible text makes it useful for patients with schizophrenia and their family members as well.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"ORIGINAL, IMPORTANT AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING. . . A timely and trenchant analysis of the limitations of the paradigm of biological psychiatry." -- Richard P. Kluft, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Temple University School of Medicine; Past President, ISSD

"WELL-DOCUMENTED AND CLEARLY EXPLAINED. . . . Significant implications for our diagnostic system, and how severely disturbed people are understood and treated." -- John Read, PhD, Editor of Models of Madness: Psychological, Social, and Biological Approaches to Schizophrenia; Director of Clinical Psychology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Product Details

• Hardcover: 318 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (November 11, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789022699
• ISBN-13: 978-0789022691
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #468,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #34 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Dissociative Disorders

More About the Author

Colin A. Ross, M.D. received his degree from the University of Alberta in 1981 and completed his psychiatry training at the University of Manitoba in 1985. Dr. Ross is an internationally renowned clinician, researcher, author and lecturer in the field of traumatic stress and trauma related disorders. He is the founder and President of The Colin A. Ross Institute for Psychological Trauma. Besides his work at Timberlawn Hospital in Dallas, Texas, Dr. Ross consults to Trauma Programs at Forest View Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Del Amo Hospital in Torrance California. He has authored over 140 professional papers and 23 books. He has reviewed for numerous professional journals and is a member of the American Psychiatric Association and is a Past President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. In addition, Dr. Ross has served as expert witness in over 50 court cases, consulted on several cable, movie and video productions and has produced six educational DVD's and CD's for mental health professionals on the treatment of trauma based disorders.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Only the trauma model can destroy psychiatry!, December 10, 2004

By 

César Tort (Mexico City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Schizophrenia: Innovations in Diagnosis and Treatment (Paperback)

I am an author that writes in Spanish and specializes in child abuse and the "model of trauma" of mental disorders, an expression coined by psychiatrist Colin Ross. The importance of doctor Ross' new book on schizophrenia can be understood in the following personal anecdotes.

About a year ago an article authored by me was rejected for publication in "Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry" (EHPP), originally created by psychiatrist Peter Breggin: the only scholarly journal I know that specializes in debunking biological psychiatry. I made a formal complaint to Breggin himself, one of the leading professional activists against criminal psychiatry in the last decades. His wife replied stating simply that he does not work there any more (though he is still the director emeritus of the institute that publishes EHPP).

The reason for the rejection of my article was simple: the new editor's aversion of my view that abusive parents can drive their children mad. I found it very hard to believe that the old views on child abuse and psychosis advanced by psychiatrists Theodore Lidz, Ronald Laing and Silvano Arieti could not find a place in the journal that Breggin created. But the fact is that his antipsychiatry journal even ignores the views of the authors that publish on the same subject in the 21st century: John Modrow, Alice Miller and, more technically, Colin Ross.

I also presented my complaint to David Cohen, a former editor of EHPP and co-author with Breggin of the stupendous book "Your drug may be your problem: how and why to stop taking psychiatric medications". The editor wrote back to Cohen saying that he "did not reject Tort's paper because of bias against trauma", and Cohen believed him. But if the journal EHPP is not biased against the trauma model of mental disorders, why on Earth didn't the editors publish an obituary, or even better a tribute, to Theodore Lidz? Lidz was the foremost specialist in the trauma model of "schizophrenia" in America in the 1940s, 50's, 60's and 70's, and he died in 2001. Even when Breggin and Cohen were editors of EHPP I did not find a single article dealing with Lidz's work or Ross's trauma model of mental disorders in their journal.

Though the editors of EHPP hate psychiatry, my article "Why psychiatry is a false science" was rejected because they are too coward to admit the fact that abusive parents are causing psychoses. Focusing on the current editor, for example, in his communication to me he stated that the trauma model is "faith based rather than based on evidence", and that the model "has long lost credibility with the scientific community as have all the older analytic theories that blame poor mother".

The editor of the only American journal that criticizes psychiatry is terribly wrong!

Those who believe that parents are innocent of the mental condition of their child are advised to study Alice Miller, John Modrow and Colin Ross' books, such as "Schizophrenia: an innovative approach to diagnosis and treatment". Ross is also coeditor of the expensive book "Pseudoscience in biological psychiatry" (for a Popperian attack on biopsych see the English section of my own web page www.antipsiquiatria.org, that includes the very article that EHPP rejected).

It is a pity that even Tom Szasz himself, the granddaddy of the anti-psychiatric movement, still refuses to see that the only way to destroy psychiatry is through the trauma model. Incredible as it may seem, Szasz and the journal that Breggin created share something with the so-called National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). NAMI is an Orwellian pro-psychiatry association that approves lobotomy and abhors the view that parents are to be blamed for the madness of their adolescent child.

The view that parents must be spared at all costs is the single major force that gives psychiatry its power in our society. I can only hope that Colin Ross' "Schizophrenia" is taken seriously among professionals, and that it will contribute to a revolution in the mental health field. Unlike his colleagues that also debunk psychiatry Ross is not an intellectual coward!