There's a big difference between deny through ignorance and deny through knowledge? Tell me how they are the same.

1). "Spread the word" that I am the fundamental truth (God). In doing so you a). Educate/teach (as true knowledge is based on the truth) and b) Are ethical - as telling the truth/being honest is as virtue that supports the greater good. In doing so you remove ignorance from those you tell - empowering them with knowledge while acting honestly/truly.

2). Ignore the word - in this case you remain ignorant and at the whim of manipulation/mis-direction/ the agenda of others. Disempowered, confused and vulnerable to being misled.

3). Keep the truth entirely to yourself. In this case you can only speak/communicate untruths/lies promoting delusion, ignorance and misdirection for others. This disempowers others by keeping knowledge away from them. And is unethical (dishonest and disabling) in self service. — Benj96

Hmmm.

4) Deny the word. — T Clark

Yes, I do think this is a fourth option. One can understand the message and spend time studying the word, but nonetheless work hard to deny its worth To deny from knowledge might be a more useful action than to ignore from ignorance. Just as some Bible scholars are atheists who consider the Bible to be largely an immoral book. Perhaps you have presented a false trichotomy?

As a non-philosopher, it often looks as if the thinkers people are drawn to seem to reflect their presuppositions. How often have you seen someone completely change their world views after exposure to a philosopher's ideas? It must happen. I don't know anyone who studies philosophy, so I have no sample group. And I'm not thinking of guys in their twenties who discover and misinterpret Nietzsche to bolster the radicalisation of their own arrogance.

I'm curious about the introspection part. How do you critically evaluate your own thoughts? — Jafar

Good question. Can it even be done? Or do we just move from one set of emotionally based presuppositions to another?

I forgot that not everyone wants to talk about philosophy all the time. — Jafar

Yes, I think philosophy, being difficult and abstruse and inconclusive, only appeals to a small number. I've only met one or two people in 40 years who have an interest in the subject. Well, that's not really true, some people will tell you they like philosophy, but it turns out that the only thing they've read is Atlas Shrugged or 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

My goal is to become more engaged when I'm reading, as well as discussing philosophy. — Jafar

So are you saying that you lack confidence in discussing what you have read and what you believe, or is it that you lack certainty? I'm a bit unclear how you view your barrier to participation.

I mean let's stick with the Trump example then... — schopenhauer1

I don’t know if T is an asshole. Seems too mild an epithet, I think he’s more of a malignant grifter. But as I said, this assessment will always be subject to some criterion of value. I think an asshole is generally obnoxious. A narcissist may be utterly charming.

But this is not a science.

What I have noticed (and this is old school wisdom) if everyone around you appears to be an asshole... the odds are it is you that's the asshole.

I think we need to pars the notion of 'asshole' a bit more. There's deliberate assholes and accidental assholes. And there's the fact that one man's asshole is another's truth teller. How do we objectively determine who is an asshole and who is just misunderstood? :wink:

:up:

According to one apocryphal account, Jesus did run away - to France, I think, with Mary Magdalene - to live out his life under an assumed name and have kids. — Vera Mont

Yes, I wonder if they got the idea from The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis (1955), wherein Jesus imagines a normal life with Mary and children. In Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln (the book Dan Brown ripped off for his famous 'novel'), this idea is explored as a conspiracy theory.

Crucification, or a wife and children? Surely there must be something less punishing than both those extremes. :wink:

Why does most deity want to be the father of Jesus? — javi2541997

Well the father, the son and the Holy Ghost are all one God - Yaweh.

I think it would be more reasonable to ask: "If you were Jesus, what would you do?" — javi2541997

Well, if I were Jesus, I would be more inclined to say, 'Fuck this, I'm going to Hawaii!'

I never heard from Yahweh. — javi2541997

Yahweh is god of Old Testament - a tyrannical destroyer of lives and worlds. Jesus is, by some accounts, his son.

A destructive God? Interesting, because most deities are basically otherwise. People believe in God because it creates life and things. — javi2541997

But isn't Yahweh expert at genocide and death? Didn't he destroy the world and even have his own son killed? Yahweh could do anything he wants to cleanse humanity but he seems to enjoy doing his thing with a maximum amount of violence and destruction. I guess that's why he is called a vengeful God who is strong in wrath. The cosmic Mafia boss.

For most of the people personal values and beliefs have a lot of influence in their decisions but there are some people who have managed to keep their beliefs at side and make decisions while being completely neutral. — QuirkyZen

Now that you talk about it like that I think you are right and no decision can be neutral and every decision is influenced by personal beliefs — QuirkyZen

Yes.

How could 'neutrality' even work? Our values, goals, and decisions are all shaped by affective orientations, driven by what pleases or satisfies us—by dispositional factors, experiences, and cultural practices. I doubt anyone can escape these influences. What we elevate is always based on subjective preferences, cultural norms, etc, rather than some neutral or objective standpoint. I also suspect that one person's account of neutral is likely to vary from another's.

Yes but the assumption made here is that reality is "outside" and therefore we are "projecting" our sense of logic or elegance onto it — Benj96

No. I'm saying it originates from us (which might be described as 'inside') like everything seemingly outside, we play a key role in its creation.

We have access to reality because we aren't separate from it. — Benj96

I wouldn't assume that this amounts to a capital R reality. It is the reality we know and to a great extent this reality varies with eras and cultures.

I'm not a proponent of an objective and infinite multiverse, instead I propose our individual subjective frameworks are the "proverbial multiverse." — Benj96

I think I'm saying something similar. Of course, being hit by a bus, or falling down a staircase presents us with a pretty unavoidable type of reality. :wink:

Yes there is elegance in geometry, ratios and physical equations. In truth I don't think human cognition could work unless reality had inherent logic. Even the word logic comes from "Logos" -a primordial entity described by the ancients. — Benj96

Just a thought. I wonder if there are some human-centric assumptions inherent in this. If there is elegance in anything, it is surely because we have invented the notion of elegance (and cultures vary regarding what elegance looks like). We don't see elegance as such, we project ourselves onto the world and interpret or create notions of elegance.

You say human cognition may only work because reality has inherent logic. I'm not sure we can demonstrate that humans have access to reality as such or what reality even is. Isn't reality just a word we use for our attempts to make sense of things in the world we experience? It isn't surprising that we 'find' inherent logic - patterns and regularities in our experience since we seem to be pattern-finding creatures, a product or our relentless sense making. We can't even look at clouds or shadows without seeing people, creatures, shapes and faces - pareidolia.

Thanks.

:up:

This may be somewhat dumb, but isn't it also the case that we (humans) are conducting the assessment here? Notions of 'intelligence' and 'reality' and 'the universe' would appear to me to be constructs of ours based on defeasible positions and knowledge which is constantly evolving. Is it even clear that reality can be understood by human beings? We are certainly able to build tentative theories and through some of them make predictions with results, but are we perhaps getting a bit ahead of ourselves in seeking to answer the OP's question? Thoughts?

I'm a fan of "Who cares." — T Clark

Yes, I sometimes pick that one too.

I wonder if there is some way of avoiding the dichotomy of traditional religious God vs the universe as pointless accident theory. — Bodhy

Yes. My favourite, when it comes to explaining the universe is, 'I don't know'. Even if one takes the god hypothesis seriously, the problem with it is that god has no explanatory power. We have no why or how or who - it's just a claim, bereft of detail.

I think the universe simply coming into being pointlessly is the height of absurdity and would render reality fundamentally unintelligible. — Bodhy

If this leads you to gods then you're surely making a textbook fallacy - an argument from incredulity? As an aside, what makes you think reality is intelligible? Might it not be that humans merely construct a view (which we dub reality) based on contingent factors like perception, culture and linguist practices. Some ideas in this constructivist melange are more useful for certain purposes than others.

The only way a scientific cosmology could avoid that would be to accept a tenseless theory of time along with some sort of eternal universe. — Bodhy

I see no reason to rule out that the universe, or some part of it is eternal. I think some physicists (like Sean Carroll) have entertained this possibility. Can we demonstrate that it isn't?

This is why I prefer, 'I don't know.' And most likely neither does anyone else, even those qualified to make better guesses than anyone here.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue. Which position do you take in the debate between relativism and objectivism, and why? How does this debate influence your own conception of truth and reality? — Cadet John Kervensley

I don't consider it particular important to have a view of truth or reality. Apart from a basic correspondence pragmatically, truth is often elusive. Truth is an abstract; it's not a property that looks the same wherever it is found. Truth is established in different ways for different matters. Eg - mathematical truth, geographic (empirical), historical, legal, philosophical.

I think the search for the really real or the truly true is often a god surrogate and a hope for finding some form of transcendence. We seem to want access to knowledge of something outside of human experience that is in some way immutable.

I believe we can pragmatically say things are good or bad in relation to the harm they prevent or cause. I am not sure we can do much more than that. All humans really have access to is a conversation about their values and what kind of world we want to build.

But even if you hold the view that there are objective facts, this does not end debate or resolve any problems between people's values. All we have then is the ceaseless debate about which set of 'objective' facts are the 'true' facts.

My own best guess for an answer is that they know about behaviors - they have observed them. And have made observations that are essentially statistical in nature - no doubt it's not quite that simple - thus being able to make "educated" guesses by looking at the data. Not to be confused with knowledge. And not a criticism but a critique; that is, a fact, or so I think. — tim wood

I think I have mostly answered this already, but essentially a psychiatrist is a medical doctor with further specialist knowledge - so has all the knowledge of a GP and additionally has expert knowledge of mental illness and can conduct a differential diagnosis (what may be organic and what may be psychological in origin) and can conduct assessments, provide diagnosis, develop treatment plans, provide pharmacotherapy, and counselling. All of these are extremely specialized and intricate matters.

For psychiatry, the ability to make knowledge-based categorical statements a luxury they usually do not enjoy. — tim wood

I would say that is a limited lens - bi-polar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, depression, etc, are fairly clear situations that can be described clearly and do respond to treatment, almost as well as diabetes can be managed by insulin.

I would agree that psychiatry is still in its infancy and that mental health treatment still has a long way to go in its development.

Personally I have provided testimony to several tribunals arguing that particular psychiatrists and hospitals have made mistakes and that the mental health system is deeply flawed and requires reform.

Ask a psychiatrist c. 1970 about a hebephrenic or a homosexual, and he will say they're sick. Except that in 2024 hebephrenia is not a thing and homosexuality not a sickness. And while that's a half-century ago, I don't think psychiatry has refined its understandings to qualify as knowledge. — tim wood

A few observations - in 1970 many psychiatrists were also reformers and challenged all kinds of notions of what qualified as 'sickness'. Psychiatry, like most disciplines, has had many reformers from within, contributing to many changes. In fact, the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1960's was led by psychiatrists. In 1970 there were psychiatrists who did not think homosexuality was an illness. Many psychiatrists I've known think that the DSM manual is inflexible and flawed.

To argue that because positions change and therefore psychiatry does not hold knowledge seems to be like the religious fundamentalists who say that science is bunk because science changes its paradigms over time.

Anyway, I'm going to leave this one here since there is no end to a debate like this and it's not really my role to defend psychiatry, which is an imperfect and evolving profession - and I am no expert. I simply know from decades of personal experince that psychiatrists can work scrupulously to provide extremely helpful life saving interventions for people. The profession is generally demonized and poorly understood. Which was my original observation.

You'd have to read the book or get a good summary. It's a long and deep study. But if you are going to say this.

My criticism being of those who represent the "witchcraft" as knowledge. — tim wood

Then you seem to be arguing that psychiatry is not knowledge. I guess there's not much to discuss then.

Yes, but always psychological reform, never social reform, because ... actually, the medical model still informs the social structure that is psychiatry - one goes to the doctor, not the politician/lawyer. — unenlightened

We weren't talking about reform but as you raised it I don't think this is right either. It doesn't describe what happens here. Reform to mental health system is generally led by people outside of medical services, by those with lived experience, by relatives, by lawyers, by community workers and by politicians. And when mental health unit workers meets a potential patient for the first time, the overarching view is ususally how can they keep people out of the system and away from the need for medication. Your question -

"how does your society fuck you up, and what are your coping strategies/self-medication?" — unenlightened

is to some extent the one which informs them.

At which point one can ask "how does your society fuck you up, and what are your coping strategies/self-medication?" — unenlightened

In my experience that is actually the starting point for most assessments. The conventional wisdom is that self harm and substance misuse are adaptive behaviours and the best resolutions are not found in medication, but in meaning. Hence the emphasis on the psychosocial.

psychiatrists by comparison are more in the way of witch doctors — tim wood

This is a pretty conventional view these days and was a thesis articulated rather well by a famous psychiatrist called E Fuller Tory in his 1980's best seller Witchdoctors and Psychiatrists: The Common Roots of Psycotherapy and it's Future. Like most good psychiatrists, Fuller Tory was critical of many aspects of psychiatry, just as many good philosophers are critical of aspects of philosophy.

At the risk of becoming tedious, what exactly is "psychiatric intervention"; that is, that distinguishes itself as psychiatric? — tim wood

A psychiatric intervention is where a mental illness is suspected and then assessed and diagnosed and provided with treatment options under the clinal care and recommendations of a psychiatrist.

But I'm happy to move on. We obviously hold differing frames.

it seems to me the best treatment is holistic in approach, providing what is needed: drugs if needed; counseling/therapeutic/custodial support as needed, and likely a mix. — tim wood

Yes, most psychiatrists would completely agree with this.

There is a lot going on in the OP. Probably too much. — Leontiskos

That's for sure.

Mental illness is surely a problem, no? And how do we approach it? Psychologically, sociologically, medicinally...? You may not like the psychiatric approach to mental illness, but what alternative would you propose? — Leontiskos

Yes, I think this summaries the matter appropriately.

In some instances there may well be alternatives for the psychiatric approach. Many psychiatrists would be the first to say this. And this can mislead people, if they focus just on some alternatives and overlook the thorny end of metal ill health, which does appear to require medical and psychiatric intervention, not just an accepting buddy or a generic counsellor.

You might answer that a psychiatrist is a person who meeting certain licensure requirements and qualifications, is authorized to take responsibility for the care of mentally ill persons. — tim wood

Partly right. But also has the appropriate qualifications and capacity to undertake diagnosis (which is far from straight forward) and the expertise to determine the best treatment plan and medication, which includes ongoing case reviews. They may also supervise and take clinical responsibility for the ongoing treatment provided by an entire department and review all cases. These are things that a nurse or a GP can do to some extent, but they lack expertise and will make more errors or hold erroneous assumptions. They are generalists and have gaps. I've seen that plenty of times. How do we determine, say, Korsakoff syndrome as opposed to Alzheimer's, or determine whether the person has drug induced psychoses or has schizoaffective disorder, etc. It's nuanced work. How do we treat the woman who is trying to cut the baby out of her stomach because she believes her fetus is the anti-Christ? (I've had variations of this twice) I'd rather a psychiatrist lead the treatment provision than a nurse. But a nurse will no doubt be required too. And probably police.

That it is a matter of presuppositions and an unquestioning belief in those presuppositions. — tim wood

I have not heard anyone with unquestioning beliefs in any presuppositions. I am critical of psychiatry and have been viewed as denunciatory pain in the arse many times in my community. I'm not here to suggest psychiatry is a panacea. Not everyone needs it. And there are multiple types of psychiatry (modalities) some useful, some not. And I am no expert on the subject, except for what I have seen work at first hand over many years. Essentially I made the point that psychiatry is poorly understood and demonized. No doubt there are self-styled countercultural hippy types, prancing around in the ruins of the 1960s "all-you-need-is-love" culture, who view psychiatry as a tool used by "the man" and Big Pharma to suppress dissent. We all know why that is and to some extent this has been a fair criticism in instances, but shouldn't be the only frame.

But just thinking on this now - even if there were other occupations who can sometimes do a similar job to a psychiatrist (whatever that might look like) so what? There are people, other than philosophers who can do philosophy. This doesn't mean that philosophy as an academic profession is worthless, or does nothing. There are people other than mechanics who can service my car and maintain it. Does that make mechanics superfluous? I think expertise and credentialing remain important, and we generally opt for expertise where the stakes are higher, but this is the era of denigrating expertise, so there is that. I think it's fine to be skeptical of expertise, but I know where I draw the line. Others may draw the line differently.

If I understand your answer, it is that a psychiatrist, encountering behavior, using the DSM-V or something like, makes a diagnosis - provides a label - and then.... And then what? I'm asking because I do not know. — tim wood

So you left out that part of the answer in your summary -

treat and support the management of your issue. — Tom Storm

Your question probably should have been, 'what does treatment and support the management, look like?'

provides a label — tim wood

Seems a bit limited to say a diagnosis is reducing people's illness to just a label. Medicine works by identifying the correct diagnosis. Doing this saves lives. There's a big difference between bi-polar disorder and depression, or between schizophrenia and autism. Having expertise in mental illness and providing the right response, saves lives. Getting medication (the type as well as the dosage) right is critical. Linking people into psychosocial support is also critical. And when all this is done appropriately, it can lead to people's recovery and full participation in community. This is no small thing.

the analogy with religion is telling. — tim wood

And what does it tell you?

To be sure, there are no doubt good men and women who are psychiatrists - the original goal to alleviate the suffering of those warehoused in 19th century mental hospitals - but generally, to be any good, they have to not do psychiatry. That leaves referrals, therapy, and prescribing drugs for counselors/therapists who cannot themselves prescribe. — tim wood

I think you are getting closer with this answer. One of the psychiatrists I work with is 'doing psychiatry' to use your term and is overseeing the treatment of around 150 people who have psychotic illnesses. This involves the ongoing support of their patient - regular medication reviews, listening to feedback, tweaking and reducing mediation dosage, accepting people's decisions if they no longer want to take medication, supporting them with ongoing psychoeducation. Through this, most of the 150 have an enhanced quality of life.

But you'd be right if you said psychiatry isn't all they need. Psychiatry is always understood as being just a part of a person's recovery. They also need supportive friends, engagement with community, employment, meaning. And I would agree with those who say that community, connection with others and meaning often play a bigger role in people becoming well than just psychiatry.

No doubt there are shonky shrinks, just as there are dubious lawyers, doctors and plumbers. Are there some who abuse power? You bet. Are there some who are complacent and lazy? Yep. I am currently involved in lobbying to get some accountability from one local area mental health service, where the local psychiatrist and his team do too little too late.

Spoken like a true kool-aid drinker — tim wood

many people are incapable of considering the subject rationally — Tom Storm

Are you trying to make my point for me? :wink:

If I pay for the services of a psychiatrist, what, mainly, can I expect to get? — tim wood

Not the most useful question - rhetorical and disingenuous I assume, given the kool-aid smear? Wouldn't it depend upon your reason and the context for engaging a psychiatrist? If you are experiencing psychosis or delusions or bulimia, or suicidal ideation or acute paranoia or chronic addiction, or if you're trying to cope with a physical decline alongside a terminal illness, you might need one to help diagnose, treat and support the management of your issue.

Maybe you're more curious about psychiatrists in private practice who provide counselling or psychotherapy (analytic or otherwise) to wealthy neurotics? There's plenty of shit on the internet about that, good and bad.

I tend to find people are mostly friendly and helpful. Drivers less so. I have no real expectations of people and make no pronouncements about human nature. Culture and situations tend to shape behaviour. I am not often seen as rude but I have been known to give the odd person a rocket up the arse (as we say in Australia) but I don’t often need to.

Thanks but I would prefer a Mahler symphony.

I do think that most political opinions are cultural. I do not think my distaste for communism comes from being an American. I know from history that communist states are tyrannical, I think I understand conceptually why that is, and history shows that communism and food are bitter enemies. — Brendan Golledge

This itself seems to be a typical American answer. :wink: I referred to socialism not communism and perhaps like many Americans, you don't apprehend a difference? But more significantly, many American's seem to see dreaded socialism in good social policy like universal healthcare.

I find myself in agreement with some of your points. Some random reactions.

In conclusion, whether a person lives in a just society is mostly a matter of luck, and we ought to expect some degree of injustice more frequently than we would expect wise laws that are faithfully executed, and so the typical person simply has to endure whatever his state would do to him. — Brendan Golledge

Maybe a little more American than how I would frame it, but I see your point.

The political trichotomy was created to address the fact that the libertarian left practically doesn't exist. I think the trichotomy makes a lot of sense from an empirical standpoint. It explains why communists think that everyone else is Hitler, why fascists think that communists and capitalists are the same, and why libertarians think that fascists and communists are the same. It also explains why the political right is divided. — Brendan Golledge

I'm not sure people's political choices are much more than 'faith' based values inherited from culture and family. Post hoc rationalization provides the explanatory content. Whenever I talk to Americans there's an almost universal obsession with freedom and a fear of socialism. I don't think this necessarily comes out of any great reflection - it seems more of a cultural reflex. In Australia, in most cases buzz words like freedom and socialism don't provoke the same emotional reactions.

Tribalism seems to explain political differences pretty well too. Tribalism is instinctive and dispositional rather than intellectual.

The big quesion for me has always been why is it that the fiercest fights and hatreds are not between different parties, but within them. Having advised various political parties here and having met and known many insiders, it seems to me that politics is the art of never giving the game away. Telling the truth and having values are barriers to success. That said, I don't hate our political system. I'm pragmatic. I dislike the Murdoch influence and media propaganda's role in promoting panic and shaping voting patterns, but I am also suspicious of intellectuals and those who think they are above the hoi polloi.

I grew up in a Protestant tradition and the insistence upon a single path was heard by me in all of its cacophony. I do take the teaching that 'identity', on that level, is between me and my maker. It is not an explanatory principle for many other things. — Paine

But that's a key issue with religion. It's innate subjectivity and relativism. I also grew up in the Protestant tradition. Baptist. We were taught that all religions were a pathway to the divine. We were also taught that the Bible was an allegorical work and not intended to be taken literally. Religions, even within the one tradition, can't agree on anything.

The problem with this of course is what to do with the Jesus story. And given the tedium of the Bible as literature (for my taste), why not pick something more engaging as a source of allegory? The Great Gatsby, perhaps? It even ends in sacrifice, execution and redemption.

All by itself, space doesn't have directions like left and right. — frank

That seems intuitively true.

Left-right confusion is surprisingly common. I have known three otherwise smart adults who can't tell the difference and need constant prompting. According to Wiki 15% of people have LRC.

On what basis do you make this distinction? Is it a matter of experiencing the world through a human body? Or is there something objective about it? — frank

I think of myself as having two halves and I know the left is the side I don't write with. I think that's how I tell the difference. Is it objective? It's certainly an intersubjective agreement shared by culture - a tool we use to organise space. While there might be some who are confused as to which is which. Those who can tell will always agree as to which is which. Does that make it objective? Of course, further complicating this is that left or right change depending upon one's position or perspective - they are not like compass points.

:up: Interesting about the word 'unbearable'. A fine thing Kundera said, and I am paraphrasing - You build a utopia and pretty soon you're going to need to build a small concentration camp.

The purpose of the poetry is not to dazzle with an astonishing thought, but to make one moment of existence unforgettable and worthy of unbearable nostalgia. — javi2541997

I don't think I fully understand what this is supposed to mean. I do agree that nostalgia is often unbearable (cloying and tawdry) but what is unbearable nostalgia? Is this what happens when gown men in their 50's collect Star Wars action figures in some attempt to recapture the summer of 1977? :wink:

I'm not a poetry enthusiast, so while I admire the technical skill of some poetic works, poems generally do not move me. I find essays (another form of compressed writing) more affecting.

If a poem uses language in a way that makes it memorable and cathartic, how exactly does this become nostalgia (a sentimental longing for a time past)? I'm assuming that the point of K's writing here is that we look back on the experince of encountering that moment in print with a nostalgia? The way we might feel when we remember hearing soem significant music for the first time.

I have no theory, I only propose that psychoanalysis has done more wrong for the average person and it shouldn't be a first place resource except for those who need it. — Abdul

Psychiatry isn't psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is a very old fashioned approach, practiced by a handful of boutique, middle-class therapists.

For the most part psychiatry is built around the client's needs, around robust diagnostic criteria.

Your concern is perhaps more about the wellness and psychology industries that are not generally connected to psychiatry and are closer to Oprah Winfrey than Freud.

Like religion, which says we are all sinners who need god to be saved, psychology can sometimes fall into the trap of saying we are all bungled and need insight through treatment.

This is a very complex field, full of great and some terrible work. The psychiatrists I have worked with over the past 30 years (in public mental health) generally dislike psychology and are not especially tolerant of the self-help industry. They would rather people develop their own skills and resilience than make them dependent upon theories or ongoing counselling.

Psychiatry is of course poorly understood and one of the great bogeymen of popular culture and many people are incapable of considering the subject rationally ( also like religion) There have been some spectacular examples of poor practice and oppression from some sections of the mental health community, as there have been in many professions.

Most people are quite sane and therefore very capable and totally self-sufficient. But by increasing the distance between your intuition and your experience of the world, we destroy the tools you need to be self-sufficient.
Most people are healthy and therefore are not, as is commonly thought, a product of their past or of a mental condition that inhibits them from self-realization. The very idea of assuming oneself to be something that needs to be "fixed" or "corrected" is the disease of the modern world of abstractions — Abdul

Most psychiatrists I have worked with would agree with you that most people do not require their help or any treatment.

Brigitte Bardot is still living; she was making movies seven decades ago.