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Harry Kennedy is Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, Dublin 14, Ireland. He was formerly Clinical Director of the North London Forensic Psychiatry Service, Enfield Community Care Trust. His research interests include the epidemiology of homicide and suicide as related to deprivation and urbanisation, the organisation of forensic mental health services and the psychopathology of anger.
This is the second paper in this issue belonging to a series of contributions to APT concerning gender and mental health (Bartlett & Hassell, 2001; Cremona & Etchegoyen, 2001; Kennedy, 2001, this issue; Kohen, 2001b; Kohen & Arnold, 2001; see also Kohen, 2001a, this issue).
The targeting of services to groups with special needs is today commonplace in enlightened public health policies. To list men among the minorities in need of such special help might have the semblance of satire. This air of levity is not really reduced by listing male's shorter life expectancy, higher infant mortality and higher rates of natural and unnatural deaths in all age groups (Drever & Bunting, 1997; Kelly & Bunting, 1998).
| Epidemiology |
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| Services for men |
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A second issue relevant to services for men concerns choice, and the accessibility and acceptability of services. Do men have unrecognised preferences that are preventing them from using health services generally, and mental health services in particular?
In order to consider whether men need special services, this paper follows a system for classifying mental health services in a meaningful way. Rather than dividing mental health services for adults into some series of existing institutional structures (hospital, community, day care, etc.), it may be more informative to consider mental health services as a series of processes. A comprehensive mental health service should have the capacity to raise public awareness and find cases and to assess, treat, rehabilitate and either discharge, transfer or provide ongoing support as required. It should have outcome measures that are relevant to the service's aims and objectives. Even this simple functional anatomy of a service neglects public health education, screening and liaison with primary care, drug and alcohol services, sexual health clinics and other agencies such as employers, social services and the criminal justice system.
| Raising awareness and finding cases |
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It follows that men with severe mental illness really are prone to being criminalised owing to some failure of mental health services. This failure may be at any point in the process of case finding, assessment, treatment and rehabilitation outlined above. Humphries et al (1992) have shown that many first presentations with severe mental illness (particularly males) are via the police or criminal justice system, although often these presentations are handled informally. The rising suicide rate among young men in inner cities at a time when suicide rates for other groups are falling (Drever & Bunting, 1997) underlines the same apparent failure in early case finding and early intervention. This failure probably arises from a combination of lack of public awareness and stigma, particularly among men, and lack of accessibility or acceptability of the services on offer.
Public awareness can be enhanced and mental disorders de-stigmatised by media campaigns, such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists' recent Defeat Depression Campaign, which deliver simple factual messages in forms targeted to gain the attention and acceptance of groups at risk. If the target group is to be young men with schizophrenia, raising awareness and reducing stigma among parents and friends may be as useful as targeting the sufferer.
Accessibility and acceptability
Primary care and community psychiatry services tend to be provided during the day and near to home: times and places convenient for women and children. Evening clinics, weekend clinics and access to clinics near to places of work rather than home might all enhance accessibility for men. Acceptability is commonly seen as providing same-gender clinicians and clinicians of similar ethnic, cultural or linguistic background. For mental illness, however, there is evidence that men prefer to disclose such symptoms to female general practitioners (GPs) (Boardman, 1987).
Avoidance of labelling and normalisation may greatly enhance acceptability, but can ultimately lead to the provision of de-skilled, ineffective services. However, many voluntary sector groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, appear to have great success in achieving uptake and engagement through a subtle balancing of disease models for public acceptance, while at the same time using peer pressure to persuade users to accept the need for change and personal responsibility for managing their problem. Where services are selectively for men, or for problems which predominantly affect men, an all-male peer group may be very much more acceptable for some, but off-putting for others. Choice is important, but research in this area is lacking.
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Developmental disorders
Autism and Asperger's syndrome, specific learning disabilities, childhood conduct disorder and ADHD are all more common in males. There is increasing interest in the developmental pathways or careers that relate these disorders to adult problems, including substance misuse, criminal behaviour and imprisonment (Wessely & Taylor, 1991).
Little is known of the long-term consequences of physical and sexual abuse and neglect of boys in childhood, since most epidemiological studies have been confined to girls. Most victims of abuse do not go on to become abusers. However, men who are violent to their partners are more likely to have a history of abuse in childhood, along with current depression and heavy alcohol use (Oriel & Fleming, 1998). Sexual assault on adult males is likely to be underreported and underrecognised, although the psychiatric consequences can be just as severe as in sexually assaulted women (King, 1990).
Distorted grief reactions
Grief is not included in standard classifications of mental disorders because it is a normal part of emotional experience. Grief reactions can, however, be diagnosed as episodes of depression if they are sufficiently prolonged, manifest typical abnormal symptoms, such as altered sleep patterns and appetites, and are severe enough to be disabling. Recently published consensus criteria for traumatic grief relied on a sample that was 70% female (Prigerson et al, 1999), a source of bias that is seldom commented on. The study identified excessive irritability, bitterness or anger among the criterion symptoms, features consistent with Lindemann's (1944) distorted grief reaction. In men, grief reactions owing to losses other than bereavement may go unrecognised, particularly if symptoms include irritability and resentment. The break-up of a relationship, the loss of contact with children, or the loss of status and independence owing to unemployment can all precipitate pathological, distorted or traumatic grief reactions.
Where there has been an ambivalent dependence on the lost partner, or idealisation of the lost child, with a disproportionate sense of entitlement, the form of the bereavement reaction may not be typical of depression. As in post-traumatic stress disorder, symptoms such as persecutory preoccupations, a pervasive sense of resentment and injustice, irritability, ruminations on themes of revenge or vindication may all be prominent. These angry cognitions and affects may be accompanied by other more typical affective symptoms including sleep and appetite disturbances, altered libido, impaired concentration and thoughts of suicide.
Rage attacks
There is an established psychopharmacological and physiological equivalence between panic attacks and rage attacks (Fava et al, 1990). A set of definitions for fear and anger (see Box 1
) is in keeping with these physiological and pharmacological equivalences, at least in defensive rather than offensive roles. Because the switch between flight and fight, fear and anger, or panic and rage is no more than the perception of others as likely victims or victors, males appear more prone to anger or rage, and females more prone to fear or panic. Men with rage attacks also commonly give histories of panic attacks and may be more willing to disclose their rages if first asked about panic attacks.
| Box 1. Anger and fear "Anger is an affective state experienced as the motivation to warn, intimidate or attack (or for fear, to escape, appease or avoid) those who are perceived as challenging or threatening. Anger (like fear) is coupled to and is inseparable from a sensitivity to the perception of challenges or a heightened awareness of threats (irritability or anxiety). This affective motivation and sensitivity can be subjectively experienced even if no external action occurs." Kennedy (1992)
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A person suffering from panic disorder and agoraphobia, usually a woman, can generate a powerful secondary family structure in which she occupies a position of great power through her dependency. This becomes an important continuing factor for her agoraphobia long after panic attacks have become infrequent. Much the same happens in the families of men with rage attacks. The man need seldom repeat a rage attack to command a secondary family structure in which his minor domestic demands are promptly met. At the same time, his reputation as a hard man, a champion in his neighbourhood an honour not to be disrespected is a further reward that is difficult to relinquish.
Both panic and rage are commonly comorbid with dependence on alcohol, cannabis or benzodiazepines. These give short-term relief of autonomic symptoms, but with chronic use, tolerance may exacerbate the frequency of attacks, probably by lowering the threshold for autonomic reactions and for perception of threat. Substance misuse, by association with rage and panic, acquires in most cultures a double-standard role, a badge of male prestige and female shame.
Attachment disorders
The pathologies of passion (Mullen & Pathe, 1994) all appear to be more common in men. Stalking (persistent unwanted attention) has recently been defined as an imprisonable offence in many jurisdictions. The underlying psychopathology can include disorders of courtship (including de Cleramboult's syndrome), abnormalities of attachment (including morbid jealousy; Mullen & Pathe, 1994) and separation disorders (see Distorted grief above).
The definitions of fear and anger given in Box 1
emphasise rage and panic and probably give insufficient emphasis to the prolonged, pervasive or preoccupying feelings of resentment and humiliation, with a bias towards self-justification and the motivation for revenge or retribution, that characterise a class of predominantly male patients found among stalkers (Mullen & Pathe, 1994) and male patients with delusional disorder (Kennedy et al, 1992).
Paraphilias
Although there are no reliable population-based epidemiological studies of the prevalence of paraphilias, all surveys indicate that they are much more common in men (e.g. Gosselin & Wilson, 1980). Paraphilias do not equate with psychiatric disorder. Sexual offending, however, is commonly the route into psychiatric services. For the clinician, it is important to realise that the natural history of paraphilias has been extensively revised in the light of research in recent years (Abel et al, 1988). Multiple paraphilias, with a progression serially from one to another, and increasing risk of offending with certain paraphilias, fantasies and cognitive distortions, are all relevant to assessment and treatment. Evidence for victimoffender cycles in general is surprisingly complex and may differ for males and females (Widom & White, 1997). For all these reasons, treatments based on addiction models for recovery and relapse prevention appear best supported by published research.
Disorders of habit and impulse
The natural history of the various substance dependence disorders includes the frequent comorbidity or progression of patients from one such addiction to another. The continuity between chemical dependence disorders and a range of other disorders, such as pathological gambling, bulimia nervosa, repetitive self-harm, kleptomania, hypersexuality and repetitive arson, is understandable, and seems meaningful (Lacey & Evans, 1986). Orford (1985) has postulated a single class of appetitive disorders with some common underlying cause, whether it is a neurochemical disorder or psychopathological dysfunction of cognition. In fact, it is difficult to identify a distinct population with a statistically abnormal association of multiple disorders (Kennedy & Grubin, 1990). The advantage of this extended appetite/addictions model is that it lends itself so well to the clearest thinking about responsibility in the forensic setting and to the most effective approaches to relapse prevention.
It is interesting that many such problems seem to be more common in men. Repetitive self-harm, often thought to be typical of women in prison, occurs in a greater number of male prisoners, simply because there are so many more men in prison (Gunn et al, 1991). These disorders are often overlooked when taking a psychiatric history. If other disorders of appetites or impulse are sought when assessing men presenting with any one addiction, a clearer understanding of the patient's lifetime development and handicaps is likely to emerge, with an enhanced rapport as a result.
Finally, the description of emotional, substance misuse and dispositional differences that may form clusters, syndromes or career patterns (Toch & Adams, 1989) is still at a very early stage of development.
| Treatment |
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Wards in modern medium secure units have been mixed since their inception, although it can be difficult to sustain a critical mass of female patients to provide women with a peer group. Where secure psychiatric wards are single-gender, almost entirely in the special hospitals, both male and female single-gender wards are pervaded by a culture of pecking-order disputes, factionalism and competition among patients for the most dramatic of gestures resembling descriptions of prison culture (Toch, 1972). It would be unfair to make the obvious adverse comparison with mixed-gender acute wards and medium-secure units, which do not admit the most extremely aggressive and have closer, more normalising contact with the community. Mixed wards have been criticised for the victimisation of female patients (Barlow & Wolfson, 1997). Although objective comparisons with single-gender wards (male or female) are difficult to find, mixed wards are undoubtedly more dangerous for women. Mixed environments are, however, probably better therapeutic environments for men and for women, and probably only a few men need to be confined to an all-male environment because of a tendency towards sexual predation. The failure of some institutions to ensure that mixed environments are safe for women (or men) represents a failure of relational and procedural security, almost always owing to poor resource management and lack of regard for quality of care.
| Rehabilitation |
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| Continuing care |
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| Conclusions |
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In future, identifying unmet needs in communities will only start with epidemiological studies of morbidity. Mental health services will probably need the services of advertising agencies, with their skills in identifying needs using qualitative methods for specific groups. The preferences, prejudices and access needs of men, once discovered, will then need to be addressed through advertising campaigns, staff selection and training, and flexible provision of services in time and place.
Rather than devise outcome measures for men's services, it would be more immediately productive to incorporate into existing performance measures a greater awareness of the need to demonstrate that services are being used by specific target groups. Existing mental health services probably do fall short of minimum standards for reaching men, just as they fail to reach many large minority groups.
| Multiple choice questions |
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| References |
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