Psychosocial factors associated with psychological problems in Irish children and mothers

 

Psychosocial Factors Irish Children and Mothers

The results of this study show that for Irish primary school children, the probability of psychiatric illness is positively associated with low IQ and reading difficulties, large family size, being a boy rather than a girl, and having a mother who is dissatisfied with her marriage or her role as mother.

For the mothers of these children, depression is positively associated with having an unemployed husband, and with being dissatisfied with the level of family income, with their relations with their relatives and their neighbours, with the opportunity foe leisure, and with their performance in their role as a parent.
The stress of unemployment, financial difficulties, lack of social support, and inadequate leisure opportunities appears to leave mothers prone to depression, which has the effects of undermining their parenting ability and makes it more likely that their children develop child psychiatric difficulties.
Family unemployment and economic disadvantage significantly effects mothers health.

Mass Killers – 2 New Books – Can we identify a mass murderer (e.g. pilot, school shooter etc) in advance?

BTB 2 Young Violent and Dangerous to know

These are extremely rare events and it is almost impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy rare events. Nevertheless, we must try but at the same time realise that many of the individual features of the profile I describe about potential mass killers are not rare in the general population. It’s the more overall picture that is relevant.

We must look at:-

1. Medical history pattern deviating from average medical history pattern of pilots, students, military personnel etc

2. Childhood history of being bullied, being a loner, being very routine bound person with special interests in death, perversions, dead animals, serial killers, mass killing, police work, military activities, horror movies, killing of animals, e.g. cats etc showing callous and unemotional trails, moodiness and showing gross lack of empathy, problems reading other people’s minds emotionally, being excessively controlling and dominating, problems with reciprocal social relationships, having sensory problems, noise, taste, touch, being significantly clumsily, being very unpopular in school but having special talents with numbers, mathematics, technology, engineering, construction and logic.

Other features would include poor eye contact, problems reading non-verbal behaviour, problems sharing emotional thoughts, problems turn taking and being very poor at group games. Many or most readers will dismiss this profile as nonsensical. The only answered to them is to ask them to produce a better alternative approach to the problem. Clearly we have to be extremely careful in labelling people inappropriately. If one is totally anti-labelling or identifying potential mass killers then one has to accept the activity of mass killers.

If one hears of a person who is in an average job and who has never performed above the average or indeed less than the average level and they state they will one day be famous and that “everyone will know my name” and they have the profile outlined above then airline management or schools managers or army commanders should ask some questions and explore the background and motive of this person a little more. If in addition to the above profile already described, a person is depressed, has recently experienced stress at his job, has had personal relationship breakup or conflict with his employers or problems with his work performance, is in a position of major responsibility e.g. airline pilot, then they should be examined further, if they make unusual and bizarre statements which could be taken as a joke if one wasn’t listening carefully.

Another scenario is a pupil (almost always male) with the profile described, who shows strange comments on his social media sites, has been bullied (or is being bullied in school), is depressed, ostracised, can’t relate to girls, is a loner, has had an academic crisis or access to guns at home or elsewhere and makes violent threats, these should be investigated by the health and safety officer in school (who should be responsible for gun attacks in school) in conjunction with the management of the school where a thorough investigation should take place. People like the readership keep Adam Lanza, Harold Shipman and Timothy McVey in mind.

References:

1. ‘Autism and School Shooting’ by Michael Fitzgerald has been published in April 2015 in the book ‘Autism Spectrum Disorders – Recent Advances’ by InTech Publishing in a book edited by Michael Fitzgerald.

2. ‘Young Violent and Dangerous to Know’, a book by Michael Fitzgerald was published by Novinka, New York in 2013 and focuses on mass killers and serial killers.

3. A new book called “Psychopathy” published in 2014, edited by Michael Fitzgerald, published by Nova Science, New York, has a chapter on ‘Criminal Autistic Psychopathy’ by Michael Fitzgerald, a not uncommon diagnosis in mass killers.

New Book on Psychopathy edited by Prof. Michael Fitzgerald

Psychopathy: Risk Factors, Behavioral Symptoms and Treatment Options
Psychopathy: Risk Factors, Behavioral Symptoms and Treatment Options
Click to enlarge
Editors: Michael Fitzgerald (Department of Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Dublin, Ireland)
Book Description:
Psychopathy is one of the most serious and challenging conditions that society and mental health professionals face. The consequences of the actions of persons with psychopathy on other individuals or society at large are very great. Persons with psychopathy are extremely difficult to treat and indeed some treatments in the past have been shown to cause deterioration affects. This book explores the issue of psychopathy from the point of view of the individual with psychopathy, brain aspects of the condition, cultural aspects, treatment aspects and it’s relation to autism and other empathy disorder which it can on occasion overlap with.
Offenders with high levels of psychopathy are among the most challenging persons mental health professionals have to treat. They need very careful and skilled interventions. Chromis is an innovative programme described by Tew, Bennett and Atkinson which shows promise. It is a future focused programme which pays attention to control and choice, collaboration and transparency and has a cognitive skills component, a motivation and engagement components. Marc Wilson and Samantha Harley have an interesting chapter on narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. They found a relationship between vertical individualism and all three constructs and between hierarchical and narcissism. Their conclusions suggest that hierarchical, autonomous societies may socialise members in such a way that may foster aversive personalities. Don Ambrose in his chapter on unmeritorious meritorocy focuses on a topic that severely affected almost everyone in the developed world in some way. He highlights the admiration for businessmen with psychopathic traits and the negative consequences of this. In the chapter on criminal autistic psychopathy Fitzgerald highlights the overlap between psychopathy and autism. Hans Asperger in his initial descriptions recognised the overlap between psychopathy and autism with his term autistic psychopathy. This idea faded from view over the last thirty years because there was a wish to separate autism from psychopathy. This wish did not prevent the overlap. Fitzgerald (2010) has introduced the sub group of autism spectrum disorders called criminal autistic psychopathy to cover the section of the spectrum where criminality occurs. It links with the new work on callous and unemotional traits (Fitzgerald 2003) and with mass killings, school and other location shootings where criminal autistic psychopathy is not rare.The chapter on cognitive neuroscience in child and adolescent psychopathy by Halty and Prieto point out among other issues that in the case of children with psychopathic features there is evidence of fewer references to welfare of victims when they have to justify transgressions. The chapter by Halty and Prieto on psychopathy in child and adolescent populations discuss the issue of psychopathy in children and adolescents and the importance of callous and unemotional traits as well as the influence of parenting practices in the development of child and adolescent psychopathy. Laura Nunes’s chapter on psychopathy: risk factors and behavioural symptoms focuses on treatment of options in extremely difficult area and proposes a biogram. In the chapter on Hans Asperger autistic psychopathy revisited focuses on the neglected paper of 1938 long before Leo Kanner wrote his paper on autism. Asperger worked on this topic throughout the 1930’s. It also focuses on the differential diagnosis of autism and schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder and other personality disorders. Ana Calzada and colleagues give us a very important chapter on brain scanning and psychopathy. These neuroanatomic differences in violent individuals are very important in terms of aetiology diagnosis and treatment problems and important areas for future research. (Imprint: Nova)References:
Fitzgerald M. (2003) Callous-Unemotional Traits and Asperger’s Syndrome. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 42, 9, 10-11.
Fitzgerald M. (2001) Autistic Psychopathy. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 40, 8, 870.
Fitzgerald M. (2010) Young Violent and Dangerous to Know. Nova Science: New York.
Table of Contents:
PrefaceChapter 1. The Treatment of Offenders with High Levels of Psychopathy through Chromis and the Westgate Service: What have we Learned from the Last Eight Years?
(Jenny Tew, A.L. Bennett and R. Akinson, National Offender Management Service, Ministry of Justice, United Kingdom and The Centre for Forensic and Criminological Psychology, The University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England; The Westgate Personality Disorder Treatment Service, HMP Frankland, and National Offender Management Service, Ministry of Justice, UK)Chapter 2. Psychopathy: A Proposal for an Integrated Evaluation
(Laura M. Nunes, Fernando Pessoa University, Oporto / Portugal)Chapter 3. MRI Study in Psychopath and Non-Psychopath Offenders
(Ava Calzada-Reyes, Alfredo Alvarez-Amador, Mitchell Valdes-Sosa, Lester Melic-Garcia, Alonso Y. Aleman and Jose del Carmen Iglesias-Alonso, Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Institute of Legal Medicine, Independence Avenue, Plaza, Havana City; Cuban Center of Neuroscience, Havana City and Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Carlos Juan Finlay, General Hospital, Havana, Cuba)Chapter 4. Unmeritorious Meritocracy: The Ascendance of Psychopathic Plutocracy in the Globalized 21st-Century
(Don Ambrose, Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, US)

Chapter 5. Narcissism, Psychopathy and Machiavellianism: Associations between Cultural Factors and Interpersonal Dominance
(Marc Stewart Wilson and Samantha M. Hartley, School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)

Chapter 6. Hans Asperger’s Autistic Psychopathy: Revisited
(Michael Fitzgerald, Department of Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Dublin, Ireland)

Chapter 7. Criminal Autistic Psychopathy.
(Michael Fitzgerald, Department of Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Dublin, Ireland)

Chapter 8. Stability of Psychopathic Traits in Youth: Long-term Trends and Comparisons with the Stability of the Five Factor Model of Personality
(Mary Ann Campbell, Rosemary Beauregard and Fred Schmidt, Psychology Department & Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, University of New Brunswick-Saint John Campus, Saint John, New Brunswick; Children’s Centre Thunder Bay, Thunder Bay, Ontario; Psychology Department, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, University of New Brunswick-Saint John Campus,
New Brunswick, Canada)

Chapter 9. Disordered Self in Schizophrenia and Autism Spectrum Disorders. The Autisms and the Self.
(Michael Fitzgerald and Victoria Lyons, Department of Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Dublin, Ireland)

Chapter 10. Exploring Treatment Options for an Allegedly “Untreatable” Disorder, Psychopathy: An Integrative Literature Review
(Chasity Bailey, Rahul Sehgal, Adrian Coscia, Deborah Shelton, University of Connecticut, Center for Correctional Health Networks-CCHNet, School of Nursing, CT, USA, and others)

Index

Series:
Psychiatry – Theory, Applications and Treatments
   Binding: ebook
   Pub. Date: 2014
   Pages: 7×10 – (NBC-C)
   ISBN: 978-1-63463-090-0
   Status: AN

Recent Activities

Prof Michael Fitzgerald

M. McDermott, M. Duffy, A. Percy, M. Fitzgerald, C. Cole (2013) “A school Based Study of Psychological Disturbance in Children Following the Omagh Bomb” Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 7/36 (peer reviewed)

Fitzgerald. M., (2014) “Overlap Between Autism and Schizophrenia: History and Current Status” Advances in Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities, 8,1,15/23 (peer reviewed)

Not Peer Reviewed Fitzgerald , M., (2013) “Author Response: All Future Psychiatrists Should be Neuro-Psychiatrists” The Psychiatrist, 37,12,404

Appointment on Editorial Board,  Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 2014

Fitzgerald M., (2012) “Schizophrenia and Autism/Aspergers Syndrome: Overlap and Difference”, Clinical Neuro-Psychology, IX,4,171/176 (peer reviewed)

Skeppar P. Thorr R. Agren S. Skeppar I. Parson B., Fitzgerald M. (2013) “Neuro-developmental Disorders with Co-Morbid Affective Disorders Sometimes Produce Psychiatric Conditions Traditionally Diagnosed as Schizophrenia” Clinical Neuropsychiatry 10 3/4, 123/133(peer reviewed)

Cleary L., Looney I.K. Brady N., Fitzgerald M., (2013) “Inversion Effects in the Perception of the Moving Human Form: a Comparison of Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typically Developing Adolescents” Autism, DOI: 10,1177/136236131349945

Cleary L., Fitzgerald M., Brady N., Gallagher L., (2014) “Holistic Processing of Faces as Measured by the Thatcher Illusion is Intact in Autism Spectrum Disorders” Autism DOI:10.1177/1362361314526005 (peer reviewed)

Fitzgerald M., McNicholas F., (2014) “Attitudes and Practices in the Management of ADHD Among Healthcare Professionals who Responded to a European Survey”  Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine 31,31/37 (peer reviewed)

Not Peer ReviewedFitzgerald M., (2014) “Unfair Playing Field”, Psychiatric Bulletin 38,2,87

(peer reviewed) Caci H., Anderson P., Donfrancisco R., Farone S., Fitzgerald M., Doepfner M., (2014) “Daily Life Impairments Associated with Childhood/Adolescent ADHD as Recalled by Adults: Results from the European Lifetime Impairment Survey” CNS Spectrums, 1/10 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1092852914000078

Not Peer Reviewed Fitzgerald M, Molneux G.,(2004) “Overlap Between Alexithymia and Aspergers Syndrome”, American Journal of Psychiatry, 161:11, 2134-2135
(peer reviewed) Caci H., Doepfner M., Asherson P., Donfrancesco R., Farone S., Herves A.,  Fitzgerald M., 214 (2013) “Daily Life Impairments Associated with Self/Reported Childhood/Adolescent Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and the Experiences of Diagnosis and Treatment: Results from the European Lifetime Impairment Survey”  European Psychiatry, 29,316/323