ABSTRACT
Our commitment to primary preventive community psychiatry has led us to identify iatrogenic damage as a significant hazard that increases the risk of ongoing psychosocial distress in the population, especially among those families that are already vulnerable because they are disrupted and may be socially marginal. For these clients especially the added stress of being victimized, unconsciously or not, by caregivers who ostensibly exist to help them can be disproportionately devastating. It is therefore within our legitimate role to attempt to derive some orderly and feasible methods to understand and reduce the incidence of this phenomenon and to support both clients and caregivers who are enmeshed in its processes.
