To be concerned about lack of understating of women's issues such as domestic abuse within psychiatry?

[Skeroooerrat]

As part of my safeguarding role I work in a multi agency capacity. Sometimes a psychiatrist is present. I have noticed that frequently the challenges that women face with domestic abuse are not understood. A recent example was a formulation that when a man who had received a prison sentence for seriously assaulting his wife during lockdown, with related impacts on their non verbal and autistic teenage child's behavior, the psychiatrist felt that the sudden loss of the father had triggered the change. I suggested developmental trauma from witnessing da over time was likely to be a factor and cited research such as a woman is likely to be assaulted on many occasions before making a police report. Psychiastriat (child, not adult) looked totally blank.
Any other experiences of this? Or isolated case? May point to training needs.

To clarify psychiatrist felt assault was an isolated incident and an example of lockdown pressures. We do not have access to all files. Just enough to think about what could be put in place to support the family.

I've always felt that psychologists are much more aware of peoples lived experiences and how that affects their mental health than psychiatrists are

Why would this be? Surely not down to the individual practitioner but the training provided?

And BTW I do agree

Anyone?

Psychiatrists are doctors - I guess they are looking to treat the problem, rather than look at the whole person, situation, life experience etc.

I would be inclined to agree that psychiatry has a poor understanding of this and it leads to poorer outcomes for women.

Developmental trauma should be something that a psychiatrist understands.

The 'isolated incident' bullshit is a worrying level of ignorance for someone with safeguarding responsibilities, never mind the failure to consider the impact on the child's mental health.

I hope you have raised your concerns through the appropriate channels.

The history of psychiatry is extremely paternalistic, even more so than western medicine in general.

It also has problems caused by the default male approach to western medicine.

Good psychiatrists consider the whole patient, because psychiatric problems do not exist in isolation from the person's wider life.

A mental health assessment should be considering wider elements than 'isolated' symptoms in order to achieve a safe and reliable result.

Yes I’d agree with you.

Unfortunately, a lot of the time domestic abuse support workers lack basic understanding of the impacts of domestic abuse on women’s mental health too and therefore don’t support and advocate as they should do in their role. It’s an awful cycle with women and children continuing to find themselves in difficult situations.

Women are really let down in this regard but I can’t see things changing anytime soon.