Disorder in high office

Noted psychiatrist says many Jamaican leaders suffer from personality disorder and mental illness

Tyrone Reid, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

Noted academic and psychiatrist, Professor Frederick Hickling, is claiming that many of Jamaica's leaders in several sectors are mentally ill.

In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner at his Connolly House offices, Hickling said he was not making a personal statement but a professional comment. Personality disorder is no respecter of persons, he said.

"I certainly, in my 40 years of experience, have had the opportunity to assess a number of leaders, so I can tell you quite definitively that there are many leaders of society who I have seen who have personality disorders and other forms of mental illness," he said.

Hickling hastened to point out that he was not referring solely to political leaders, but leaders from every arena of society.

Meanwhile, consultant clinical psychologist, Dr Karen Richards, told The Sunday Gleaner that she could not comment on the incidence of personality disorder among leaders in Jamaica. But she did point out that mental illness, or personality disorder, was no respecter of persons. The United Kingdom (UK)-born clinical psychologist, who has been living and practising in Jamaica since 2007, thinks the number of persons, especially the young, who present with personality disorder is alarming.

self-harming

"In anecdotal evidence, in terms of what you see as a clinician, it's surprising. I think it is high (that is) the number of people who come in who are cutting themselves or using other means of self-harming such as frequently taking overdoses," said Richards,

She added: "I am surprised at the number of people I see who would qualify for that diagnosis."

Richards believes that to some extent, the pervasiveness of personality disorder in Jamaica is self-perpetuating, and abuse is usually the root cause. Abused people, she said, tend to abuse other people. "These people are having children and are raising them just the same. We are probably raising the next genera-tion of people with personality disorders," she said.

Richards pointed out that while prac-tising in the UK, cases of borderline person-ality disorder were very rarely observed among young people living in that country who were of African and African-Caribbean origin. "Could it be that black young people were not included in the research, or they didn't go to the doctors, or is it that researchers neglected ethnic minority groups?" questioned Richards, who welcomed the results of the four-stage, stratified random-sampling method funded by the CHASE Fund and carried out by Don Anderson & Associates in November 2009.

scientific paper

The scientific sampling method indicated that nearly one million adult Jamaicans suffered from mental illness or personality disorder. The sampling is the basis of a scientific paper on the population prevalence of per-sonality disorder in Jamaica, being prepared by Hickling in tandem with Vanessa Paisley, clinical psychologist, for presentation at the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture Annual Meeting, to be held in Seattle, Washington, in June.

Among other things, the random sampling showed that almost half (45.7 per cent ) of the persons who were single, and two-fifths (43.2 per cent ) of the persons who were separated or divorced met the criteria for a personality disorder diagnosis, as compared to approximately a third (35.7 per cent ) of those in a committed relationship.