October 1999 Volume 80 Number 10
"serving the protectors"
| October 1999 Volume 80 Number 10 "serving the protectors" |
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| Straight to the Point | |
| By
Trevor Haskell PASA Executive
Committee Member |
From last month
Efforts to treat childhood are as old as the syndrome itself. Only in modern times, however, have humane and systematic treatment protocols been applied. In part, this increased attention to the problem may be due to the sheer number of individuals suffering from childhood. Government statistics (DHHS) reveal that there are more children alive today than at any time in our history. To paraphrase P. T. Barnum: ‘There’s a child born every minute.’
The overwhelming number of children has made government intervention inevitable. The nineteenth century saw the institution of what remains the largest single program for the treatment of childhood - so called ‘public schools’. Under this colossal program, individuals are placed into treatment groups based on the severity of their condition. For example, those most severely afflicted may be placed in a ‘kindergarten’ program. Patients at this level are typically short, unruly, emotionally immature, and intellectually deficient. Given this type of individual, therapy is of necessity very basic. The strategy is essentially one of patient management and or helping the child master basic skills (e.g. finger painting).
Unfortunately, the ‘school’ system has been largely ineffective. Not only is the program a massive tax burden, but it has failed even to slow down the rising incidence of childhood.
Faced with this failure and the growing epidemic of childhood, mental health professionals are devoting increasing attention to the treatment of childhood. Given a theoretical framework by Freud’s landmark treatises on childhood, child psychiatrists and psychologists claimed great success in their clinical interventions.
By the 1950s, however, the clinician’s optimism had waned. Even after years of costly analysis, many victims remained children. The following case (taken from Gumbie & Pokey, 1957) is typical.
Billy J, age 8, was brought to treatment by his parents. Billy’s affliction was painfully obvious. He stood only 4’ 3” high and weighed a scant 70 pounds, despite the fact he ate voraciously. Billy presented a variety of troubling symptoms. His voice was noticeably high for a man. He displayed legume anorexia and, according to his parents, often refused to bathe. His intellectual functioning was also below normal - he had little general knowledge and could barely write a structured sentence. Social skills were also deficient. He often spoke inappropriately and exhibited ‘whining behaviour’. His sexual experience was non existent. Indeed, Billy considered women ‘icky’.
His parents reported that his condition had been present form birth, improving gradually after he was placed in a school at age 5. The diagnosis was ‘primary childhood’. After years of painstaking treatment, Billy improved gradually. At age 11, his height and weight increased, his social skills are broader, and he is now functional enough to hold down a ‘paper route’.
After years of this kind of frustration, startling new evidence has come to light which suggests that the prognosis in cases of childhood may not be all gloom. A critical review by (Fudd, 1972) noted that studies of the childhood syndrome tend to lack careful follow-up. Acting on this observation, Moe, Larrie and Kirly (1974) began a large scale longitudinal study. These investigators studies two groups. The first group comprised 34 children currently engaged in a long-term conventional treatment program. The second group of 42 children receiving no treatment. All subjects had been diagnosed as children at least 4 years previously, with a mean duration of childhood of 6.4 years.
At the end of one year, the results confirmed the clinical wisdom that childhood is a refractory disorder - virtually all symptoms persisted and the treatment group was only slightly better off than the controls.
The results, however, of a careful 10 years follow-up were startling. The investigators (Moe, Larrie, Kirly and Shemp, 1984) assessed the original cohort on a variety of measures. General knowledge and emotional maturity were assessed with standard measures. Height was assessed by the ‘metric system’ (see Ruler, 1923) and legume appetite by the Vegetable Appetite Test (VAT) designed by Popeye (1968). Moe et al. found that subjects improved uniformly of all measures. Indeed, in most cases, the subjects appeared to be symptom free. Moe et al. report a spontaneous remission rate of 95%, a finding which is certain to revolutionize the clinical approach to childhood.
The recent results suggest that the prognosis for the victims of childhood may not be so bad as we feared. We must not, however, become too complacent. Despite its apparently high spontaneous remission rate, childhood remains one of the most serious and rapidly growing disorders facing mental health professionals today. And, beyond the psychological pain it brings, childhood has recently been linked to a number of physical disorders. Twenty years ago, Howdi & Doodi (1965) demonstrated a six fold increased risk of chicken pox, measles and mumps among children as compared with normal controls. Later, Barby and Kenn (1971) linked childhood to an elevated risk of accidents - compared with normal adults, victims of childhood were much more likely to scrape their knees, lose their teeth, and fall of their bikes.
Clearly, much more research is needed before we can give any real hope to the millions of victims wracked by this insidious disorder.
This chapter comes from the book Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality. It appears to be out of print. There is hope for parents.
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