Perhaps Professor Frances should talk to Prof. Alan Bittles of the Centre for Comparative Genomics in Fremantle, Western Australia, before he writes any more articles on the current topic. He might find that the Aussies know a bit more than he realises.

David

I too would be concerned about an increased focus on "early intervention". The effects of antipsychotic medications on people can be quite devastating.
They should be reserved for only those who have a genuine psychotic illness. The difficulty in adolescence is distinguishing the normal from the abnormal. Most teenagers can be pretty abnormal at times, but this is no illness. Simply a symptom of being a teenager.
Our society seems to have developed a tendency to pathologise every aspect of behaviour that does not fit our perception of ideal. This has resulted in massive rates of diagnosed depression (fortunately mostly amongst adults) and massive rates of ADHD or other behavioural or learning disorders amongst children and adolescents. Fortunately the treatments for ADHD and depression are relatively benign. But the treatments for psychosis are not. There is also very little evidence to show that treating a psychotic illness before it has fully emerged has significant long term benefits.
While early intervention may well be able to stop some people developing diabetes, I am highly skeptical that it can stop someone developing schizophrenia.

I wonder if those lobbyists who have been campaigning for psychologists to replace school chaplains have any idea of the rates of false positives for prepsychosis 'diagnosis'.