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The figures seem extremely high to me but the article does raise some important points. I'm interested in reactions. Who is this guy? Kenneth Baugh Does he have any credibility?
Here is the rest of it http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/2...us/focus1.html
As family values collapse and social bonds unravel, Jamaicans are going bonkers
Martin Henry, Contributor
Early in the New Year, this newspaper reported that psychiatrist Frederick Hickling and research partner Vanessa Paisley had discovered that some 40 per cent of Jamaicans have some kind of personality disorder.
Now doctor-politician Kenneth Baugh is telling us that the high incidence of personality disorder in the society is as a result of a breakdown in the family structure. It should be clear - even to the insane - that we cannot continue like this.
In critiquing research as non-experts in the particular matter, we have been trained to ask who funds the study and how it was done. As the saying goes, for someone with a hammer, everything is a nail. The CHASE Fund, which could hardly be accused of having a vested interest in certifying so many Jamaicans 'mad', financed the Hickling-Paisley study. And the impeccable Don Anderson polling outfit, which gets election results right when others don't, conducted the four-stage, stratified random sampling on 1,506 Jamaicans between age 18 and 64 years.
Extrapolation of the data, extending it to the whole population, suggests that nearly one million persons in Jamaica are suffering from mild to serious personality disorder of one sort or another.
As an aside, the Statistical Institute of Jamaica is promising the overdue results of the last census next month. This should please Mike Henry no end. We have been working with the "extrapolated" data of the 2001 census. Mike Henry has been a fierce advocate of getting and using accurate demographic data for policy and planning. The Government, very often, doesn't know what it is talking about or planning for. But then Hickling told The Gleaner that many of Jamaica's leaders in several sectors are mentally ill.
It appears to me, without the benefit of a scientific study, that political leaders who can build garrisons and use political violence as a tool for electoral victory and then display all the innocence and gentleness of a lamb would have Jekyll and Hyde personalities. One very high-ranking politician, who would be a fantastic subject for retrospective psychoanalysis, died crying out, "Remorse, come!" Perhaps others will.
In any case, Dr Baugh, speaking in the recent debate on the National Parenting Support Commission Act, told the House of Representatives: "I have no doubt in my mind that because of the breakdown of the family, and what I see in rural Jamaica and urban inner cities of families suffering from this dismantlement, they contribute significantly to this personality disorder that impedes learning."
CIRCULAR RELATIONSHIP
The goodly doctor-legislator argues a direct correlation between the state of families and personality disorder. This is more likely to be a circular relationship, with each feeding the other. Baugh said in Parliament further: "I am afraid that a lot of our children in their homes are subject to a lot of stress, a lot of hostility, to loud noises, to discordant music, to sleeplessness, the lack of space in the home."
While we await the urgently necessary counter-studies to the Hickling-Paisley study, their estimate of about 40 per cent personality disorder in the population is way beyond the six to 15 per cent range found internationally. That's a red flag against the study; why would Jamaica be as much as nearly seven times out of line with international norms in this matter of human personality?
But clinical psychologist Dr Karen Richards, based on her consultant practice here and her experience in the United Kingdom where she was born and trained, thinks the number of persons, especially the young, who present with personality disorder is "alarming".
"In terms of what you see as a clinician, it's surprising," she says. "I am surprised at the number of people I see who would qualify for that diagnosis." The pervasiveness of personality disorder, she believes, is self-perpetuating, and abuse is usually the root cause.
Martin Henry, Contributor
Early in the New Year, this newspaper reported that psychiatrist Frederick Hickling and research partner Vanessa Paisley had discovered that some 40 per cent of Jamaicans have some kind of personality disorder.
Now doctor-politician Kenneth Baugh is telling us that the high incidence of personality disorder in the society is as a result of a breakdown in the family structure. It should be clear - even to the insane - that we cannot continue like this.
In critiquing research as non-experts in the particular matter, we have been trained to ask who funds the study and how it was done. As the saying goes, for someone with a hammer, everything is a nail. The CHASE Fund, which could hardly be accused of having a vested interest in certifying so many Jamaicans 'mad', financed the Hickling-Paisley study. And the impeccable Don Anderson polling outfit, which gets election results right when others don't, conducted the four-stage, stratified random sampling on 1,506 Jamaicans between age 18 and 64 years.
Extrapolation of the data, extending it to the whole population, suggests that nearly one million persons in Jamaica are suffering from mild to serious personality disorder of one sort or another.
As an aside, the Statistical Institute of Jamaica is promising the overdue results of the last census next month. This should please Mike Henry no end. We have been working with the "extrapolated" data of the 2001 census. Mike Henry has been a fierce advocate of getting and using accurate demographic data for policy and planning. The Government, very often, doesn't know what it is talking about or planning for. But then Hickling told The Gleaner that many of Jamaica's leaders in several sectors are mentally ill.
It appears to me, without the benefit of a scientific study, that political leaders who can build garrisons and use political violence as a tool for electoral victory and then display all the innocence and gentleness of a lamb would have Jekyll and Hyde personalities. One very high-ranking politician, who would be a fantastic subject for retrospective psychoanalysis, died crying out, "Remorse, come!" Perhaps others will.
In any case, Dr Baugh, speaking in the recent debate on the National Parenting Support Commission Act, told the House of Representatives: "I have no doubt in my mind that because of the breakdown of the family, and what I see in rural Jamaica and urban inner cities of families suffering from this dismantlement, they contribute significantly to this personality disorder that impedes learning."
CIRCULAR RELATIONSHIP
The goodly doctor-legislator argues a direct correlation between the state of families and personality disorder. This is more likely to be a circular relationship, with each feeding the other. Baugh said in Parliament further: "I am afraid that a lot of our children in their homes are subject to a lot of stress, a lot of hostility, to loud noises, to discordant music, to sleeplessness, the lack of space in the home."
While we await the urgently necessary counter-studies to the Hickling-Paisley study, their estimate of about 40 per cent personality disorder in the population is way beyond the six to 15 per cent range found internationally. That's a red flag against the study; why would Jamaica be as much as nearly seven times out of line with international norms in this matter of human personality?
But clinical psychologist Dr Karen Richards, based on her consultant practice here and her experience in the United Kingdom where she was born and trained, thinks the number of persons, especially the young, who present with personality disorder is "alarming".
"In terms of what you see as a clinician, it's surprising," she says. "I am surprised at the number of people I see who would qualify for that diagnosis." The pervasiveness of personality disorder, she believes, is self-perpetuating, and abuse is usually the root cause.
Here is the rest of it http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/2...us/focus1.html
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