Bullying, victimisation, and psychosis

Trauma is a risk factor for mental illness. This apparently simple statement, with such face validity surely hardly bears investigation. Of course traumatic events will increase the risk of mental distress and disorder- this is stating the obvious. However, not all or perhaps not even the majority of individuals with mental disorder have a history of childhood trauma, and not all individuals who experience childhood trauma develop a mental illness. One could explain this as simply GxE (gene x environment), whereby childhood trauma is the E for a given proportion of patients. Yet despite there being a large body of research to confirm the association between trauma and mental illness, challenges remain. These include the difficulty of recall bias, lack of longitudinal research, varying definitions of trauma and varying assessments of mental illness(1).