OUR YOUTH CRISIS

OUR YOUTH CRISIS

(Sunday Telegraph march 20^th, 2011). By: Caroline Marcus (Health Writer).

Nicole Kidman’s father, a leading psychologist, has called for urgent funding from the Gillard Government to prevent tens of thousands of children as young as 12 from developing schizophrenia.

Dr Antony Kidman issued his plea after revealing his family’s own private struggle with schizophrenia which his brother Julian was diagnosed with as a teenager.

Dr Kidman, the director of the Health Psychology Unit at the University of Technology, Sydney, said young people would fall through the cracks if more federal funding was not invested in preventing serious mental illness.

A major focus of the unit has been working with young people aged between 12 and 25 who have experienced one or more episodes of psychosis, treating them with a combination of medication and cognitive behavioural therapy to prevent such episodes turning into full-blown schizophrenia.

As many as 3 per cent of the population will experience an episode of psychosis in their lifetime, with up to 1 per cent going on to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, but Dr Kidman believes this number could be reduced with the right preventative measures.

The unit has relied on $350,000 in funding from the NSW Government , but Dr Kidman has been forced to chase the majority of the unit’s $1 million-a-year funding through public donations and corporate sponsorship.

The university helps maintain the first-class centre, adjacent to Royal North Shore Hospital, at an approximate cost of $400,000 a year.

The Dr Kidman would like the Federal Government to step in and at least match the state commitment as well as pour more resources into mental health programs across the country as advocated by 2010 Australian of the Year, Professor Pat McGorry.

Julian Kidman, who was close to his niece Nicole and her television presenter sister Antonia, along with the rest of the tight-knit family, was diagnosed with schizophrenia aged 18 in the 1950s, when Dr Kidman was 20 years old.

It was difficult, he told The Sunday Telegraph. I did not understand what was going on. You don’t understand why people are behaving in what appears to be irrational behaviour. He said Julian went on to have a very difficult life, failing to gain employment and having a periods of hospitalisation, finally dying in the early 1990s from a heart condition.

His illness was tough on the whole family, especially Dr Kidman’s daughters, his two sisters and his mother.

Families get stressed by a family member who appears to have a mental illness, he said. It is stressful and particularly with a mental illness, people blame themselves and think they are responsible for the mental illness of their off-spring.

There is the fear of people with mental illness. There is the shame with families and (the mental ill) themselves  - Why I have I got this?