Dr. Clancy D. McKenzie M.D.

Excerpt Babies Need Mothers

Chapter 2

Having Schizophrenia Is Unnecessary

Despite the countless billions spent searching for the root cause of schizophrenia, no one, to my knowledge, has found a cause that applies to all schizophrenia. Nor has anyone found a cause without which schizophrenia cannot occur.

Imagine the frustration and discouragement of the patient who has searched for years and decades for what causes the delusional ideas to surface, over and over again, and still does not have a clue as to why this happens. And without understanding the cause, what can the patient do to prevent it from recurring?

Worse still, even those regarded as experts in the field have not found a cause that applies to all schizophrenia, and a cause without which schizophrenia cannot occur.

Those studying biochemical change have made innumerable discoveries that have led some to proclaim that schizophrenia is a chemical imbalance. There is a chemical imbalance indeed, but nowhere is there proof that this is cause instead of result of a psychological process.

Others study changes in brain structure, from minute cellular detail to gross structural change, and they indeed have made many amazing discoveries; but once more, there is nothing that proves this is cause instead of result of the disease process. Nonetheless, many who follow the discovery of these changes have declared schizophrenia is a brain disease.

"Babies Need Mothers"

Still others lump the findings together and call schizophrenia a neurobiological disorder. This is more than just declaring that neurobiological changes have been found. It goes one step further and implies that neurobiological change is the cause. Indeed, some take each new neurobiological discovery as encouragement that we are getting closer to finding the neurobiological cause.

This is not meant to be a criticism of the sincerity and integrity of the men and women conducting the studies. It is an observation that the enormous funding of research efforts has failed to make a crucial and verifiable distinction between cause and effect in cases of schizophrenia. It is an observation that the billions of research dollars might be spent looking only in the wrong direction for root cause. Indeed, the massive search for neurobiological cause might instead be a search downstream for the leak in the dam, measuring the biological results of the disease process and never addressing cause.

In the ordinary course of events, modern research institutions enjoy receiving all data supportive of their efforts. When new information presented contradicts entrenched beliefs, however, the initial reaction is often one of doubt and skepticism. Because of this barrier, serious and potentially valuable research data is blocked at the very point where it should be examined.

Science is open exploration. When critically important data is blocked, this can make it virtually impossible to identify cause; and without the identification of cause, there can be no prevention. Furthermore, without understanding the cause, mechanisms, precipitating and perpetuating factors, effective treatment is markedly compromised if not precluded altogether.

Another branch of research has spent billions of dollars in efforts to find a genetic cause of schizophrenia. This has resulted in more than half of the chromosomes being implicated in one study or another.

Nonetheless, only a small minority of schizophrenic patients has a first-degree relative with the disorder; and with half or more of them, the cause might be familial instead of hereditary.

In 1996 I published a textbook with Dr. Lance Wright, entitled Delayed Posttraumatic Stress Disorders from Infancy: The Two Trauma Mechanism, and in the literature review section I cite several errors in conclusions derived from genetic studies. For example, hereditary and familial factors are combined and counted as genetic. For me, this is not acceptable science because it lacks precision. It is like having a bushel of apples and oranges and calling them apples.

Having Schizophrenia Is Unnecessary

Perhaps the reason why such data is easily accepted is because the spectacular space-age technology used is so impressive that it thwarts even the thought of challenge. Yet hidden behind this cloak of science are many errors, and the ones I have found point in the direction of making data appear more significant than it actually is.

I have no attachment to any particular result, and the geneticists are welcome to whatever they prove. I strongly suspect there is some degree of genetic predisposition, but from the research findings I have reviewed, it is not possible to reliably determine a true percentage contribution made by that predisposition. In my opinion, genetic research is a search upstream for the leak in the dam, measuring tributaries of genetic predisposition and never addressing primary cause. Geneticists themselves do not claim they have found something that applies to all schizophrenia, and without which, schizophrenia cannot occur.

Nonetheless, as a result of the billions spent and the huge publicity this has engendered, many proclaim schizophrenia is a hereditary condition.

So thus far, while patients have not been given a clear explanation of cause and mechanisms, they have been provided a series of pronouncements, including: “It’s a chemical imbalance,” “It’s a brain disease,” “It’s a neurobiological disorder,” “It’s hereditary,” “It’s a biopsychosocial disorder,” or “It’s many diseases with many causes.” These labels are not helpful in any way; instead they are misleading. In fact, they are even more misleading because each statement is backed with billions of dollars of research and mountains of peer-reviewed literature, which makes them appear authoritative and irrefutable.

Given this as background, it is easy to understand why patients find great relief when finally they are given a clear understanding of root cause and mechanism for their illness—especially when this matches their own symptoms and life history.

In the 1981 Schizophrenia and the McKenzie Method audiocassette tapes, many of those responding to the questionnaire proclaimed they received more understanding from the tapes than from all previous years of treatment.

“Babies Need Mothers”

Why should this be so?

It is probably because few seem to understand enough to explain anything to the patient about how the mind works. Interest in psychological mechanisms has taken a back seat to neurobiological change, and relatively few continue to explore the workings of the mind.

Meanwhile, mental health professionals have been overwhelmed with the vast number of scientific studies, and they are awestruck with the endless volumes of peer-reviewed literature. They also are impressed with the tacit acceptance of current research, by virtue of enormous funding for such projects through the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The mere fact that institutions receive large funding serves to validate their conclusions, including those that are flawed. The massive amount of scientific information is more than many therapists can process; and too often, they throw up their arms and say, “It’s a chemical imbalance” or “It’s a brain disease” or “It’s a biopsychosocial disorder,” depending on which section of the mountain they have chosen to climb.

What most do not realize is that all these findings might more likely pertain to the results of the disease process or represent minor predispositions or minor contributory factors and never truly address the actual root cause. The ultimate authority, in which they have placed their trust, could be just searching in the wrong direction for the primary cause.

I have found that when a patient is provided a clear understanding of the disorder and is able to follow the primary treatment recommendations, then psychotherapy becomes highly effective—with or without medication. In fact, medicine most often has to be reduced or eliminated altogether, because as patients recover it makes them far too drowsy.

It is not surprising that many who just listened to my audio recordings reported gaining more benefit and understanding than from all previous years of therapy. For a majority of patients, it might have been the first time they were given any understanding of the nature of their problem. This would explain why it comes as a great relief to them to finally know, in understandable terms, why they experienced the strange things they did. Not only do they know, but they also see a clear path to recovery, and recurrences are very unlikely as long as they adhere to the primary treatment protocol.

Having Schizophrenia Is Unnecessary

Part II: Simple Concepts Everyone Understands

We already described posttraumatic stress disorder, and this is a good place to start. Everyone understands why a veteran, ten or twenty years after the war, upon hearing a sharp sudden loud noise, instantly dives for cover or takes some other defensive measure as though he were back in combat once more.

This is simple. Although he knows where he is and knows that it is not wartime, suddenly he experiences being in another place at another time and fighting for his life. Even his chemistry and physiology change as his adrenal glands pump adrenaline into his bloodstream, his heart beats faster, he breathes harder, his pupils dilate, his hands and feet perspire, his senses are on high alert, and he scans the perimeter for danger.

What does this have to do with schizophrenia?

The Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Mechanism for Schizophrenia
And How It Was Discovered

The first clue came during a child psychoanalytic training class with Dr. Margaret Mahler in 1966 when she said the origin of childhood schizophrenia is in the first eighteen months of life.

Dr. Margaret Mahler is considered by many to be the foremost child psychoanalyst of the twentieth century, so her words warrant close attention.

Curious about her observation, I checked my then-current adult patient population and noted that half a dozen of my adult schizophrenic patients had a sibling about one and a half years younger—and as many of my non-psychotic depressed patients had a sibling about two and a half years younger, and in no instance in that small patient population was this reversed.

The mutual exclusivity of the two groups, in that small patent population, is one over two to the twelfth power or one chance in 4,096 by chance alone.

Whoooa! That is worth studying. Was this just a coincidence?

Birth of a sibling is only one out of thousands of infant traumas, but it is very common, provides lots of data, is upsetting to many infants—and more importantly, the exact age of the older child when the younger is born is known and recorded.

Certainly, this is no one’s fault, and no one is to blame. It is a matter of an unfortunate set of circumstances at a critical stage of development, and no one would think that such an event could set the stage for the later development of a serious disorder. 

Identifying the Age of Origin of Schizophrenia

In 1966, I began to check all new patients who had serious mental and emotional disorders for this one early event—even though I knew this event was not the sole cause of all mental illness. But since the event had a known date of occurrence, it revealed something special.

As I began to study this one event, I noted that patients with schizophrenia, who had a sibling fourteen months younger, were categorically different from those with a sibling sixteen months younger; and these differed from those with a sibling eighteen months younger.

This was amazing. Soon I could determine clinically the age at birth of the next sibling, and this was accurate to the month more often than it was off by a month. This really is a broad range when we consider that it is thirty days either side of the estimate and that the rate of development between twelve and twenty-four months is very rapid. Furthermore, I had identified five parameters with which to make the determination.

I had identified age-of-origin specific reality, age-of-origin specific behavior, age-of-origin specific feelings, age-of-origin specific body movements, and age-of-origin specific level of affective expression—each of which matched the age in months of the patient when the sibling was born! So the age at birth of a sibling became symptom defining.

For example, a lady called on the telephone and said, “Hi, I have serotonin deficiency with a touch of paranoia,” to which I replied, “Do you also have a brother or sister one year nine months younger?” Stunned, she said, “My brother is one year and nine months younger. "How did you know!?"