• introbert
    333
    As someone with an interest in post-modernism and over-thinking, I often turn my attention to the very interesting field of medical science, psychiatry. I found it humorous that in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the evil antagonists were the Psychiatrists, but not much explanation was given for this role. Without any understanding of this plot decision the bemused reader could only acknowledge this choice with paradoxical laugher, a symptom of mental illness. I'm not completely certain what Dougals Adams thought about this, but psychiatry definitely does have an aura of evilness about it which is hard to define. My own impression is that it exists as sort of an obstinate force against developments in human rights and liberties, but I guess in the context of Adams' book it is against, at least symbolically, the kind of insanity the book(s) is written by. That is the subtextual meaning I infer from that choice of antagonist, as the narration of the book is off-the-wall.

    This leads me to contemplate an interesting contrast between psychiatry as 'medicine for the soul' and the vulgar notion of 'laughter as best medicine'. It seems that many mental illnesses are the result of past traumas or physical conditions of the brain, and that madness is in a manner the 'medicine' of the body attempting to heal itself. This is manifest in behaviors like laughing, or shouting, and other emotional instabilities. This is an intuitive conclusion based on the naturalistic ways people deal with better understood physical and emotional traumas, e.g. when they are hurt they cry or laugh etc. So, the message I ultimately glean from this work of madness is that there is an inherent symbolic conflict in 'medicine for the soul'.

    Those two preceding paragraphs are just an interlude, to this topic "Philoso-psychiatry" which I suppose means "love of wisdom as medicine for the soul". In many post-modern writings, such as those by Foucault or Deleuze, Psychiatry plays a similar antagonist to writings of symbolic madness: an equivocation can and has been drawn between post-modernism and schizophrenia. Now that the institution of psychiatry has become the forgone conclusion of mental disorder, it has become part of the course of bodily illness that affects the mind in replacement of the body's own often inadequate healing mechanisms. It seems that psychiatry as body attaches its soul to those of the bodies of the mad, so engaging in this kind of philosophy or anti-psychiatry becomes part of this mixed-up 'medicine for the soul'. However, the question is whether this body that attaches itself and its soul to its host, is symbiotic or parasitic.

    Psychiatry does in fact help many people from the relationship, like a symbiant, but over the long term its practices and treatments cause illness and death like a parasite. In both cases it grows stronger with resources and knowledge of its subjects. But the knowledge it produces is not philosophical, it is a subset of science. The host is the one that engages in philoso-psychiatry and tries to heal through transcendental thoughts to try to escape its harm. If there is any question as to which is host or parasite, the mad or psychiatry, one need only ask "who made who?".

    1. Who made who? (6 votes)
        The mad made psychiatry.
        50%
        Psychiatry made the mad.
        50%
  • Deus
    320
    I have a book on my shelf which is called the Lucifer Effect. The irony of it is that psychiatry can not even diagnose itself.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Not really sure what you are asking. Madness and high risk behaviour towards self and others predates psychiatry. I've worked with a lot of psychiatrists, and like any profession, there is good and bad. Psychiatrists (like journalists, politicians and lawyers) are an easy populist target of fear and scorn and frequently the stock villain in comics and movies and, because people don't know much about the work or about mental ill health, they are fairly easy to satirise and malign. Personally I think psychiatry is often a useful profession and I much prefer people get mental health treatment when they require it than not. I've seen psychiatry do more good than bad, but no doubt in some places it can be abused, especially if used by an autocratic system or government.
  • DeusAccepted Answer
    320
    My last comment actually downplays the evil of psychology and the application of it through psychiatry.

    From frontal lobotomies which is akin to trepanning or blood-letting in the other side of medicinal science which is concerned with body rather than mind problems.

    Whilst the body only side of medicine is able to make good use of the scientific method, psychology still remains in the dark ages unfortunately.

    With the bigger interests of pharma at play in providing so called cures for various non-physical/mind ailments it makes it hard for real progress to occur in this field at the moment
  • introbert
    333
    That is a nice irony! Is that a point made in the book, or your own?

    The question I'm asking "who made who" is just to reinforce which body is host and which is parasite. A host can make parasites, but a parasite can't make a host. I appreciate your comment, but as irony is a religious level belief to me, I have to always root for the underdog.
  • Deus
    320
    Simply a conclusion on the subject not just of my own but a few knowledgable others.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    A host can make parasites, but a parasite can't make a host.introbert

    That may be the case, but this is a different subject. You may as well pose this question about any human discipline - does science create facts, does medicine create sickness, does physics create laws? And to some extent all disciplines hold an element of creativity and self-generation.

    We know that people who have mental illnesses frequently have no insight - they are in denial even as the voices are telling them to harm themselves or someone else - and are fearful of psychiatric services as a result. Much easier for many people to pretend that there is no mental illness and that psychiatry is fraudulent. And no doubts some of it poorly practiced, as is the case for many professions.
  • Deus
    320


    Quick question. If by self admission of hearing voices an individual commits harm toward another is handled by psychiatric institutions then why does the other type of criminal behaviour where no voice is heard handled by the regular justice system.

    What is the difference here between two killers for example … who both commit the same crime but one claims he heard voice/god/Steve Jobs tell him to do it and the other committed the murder as per standard killer behaviour.

    Why should there be two distinctions ?
  • introbert
    333
    The argument simplified is the body's medicine for its soul (laughter or philosophy) is against psychiatry (medicine for the soul). The medicine for the soul (psychiatry) attaches its body and its soul to the mad. The body and the soul of the mad becomes sick and tries to heal through philosophy and laughter. Thus, psychaitry is like a parasite. Why are the mad not parasites on psychiatry? Parasites do not make their own host. Sure, psychiatry could easily make healthy people sick, but practically no.
  • introbert
    333
    Definitely agree with the direction of your inquiry. In both cases the killer has an irrational inner voice that leads to the crime.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Why should there be two distinctions ?Deus

    Because the mental illness and the resulting risks are treatable. When a person with a significant psychiatric illness (psychosis) is taking medication they are likely to not commit crimes and develop insight and get on with things.

    Here's an example. I worked with a pregnant woman who heard voices. She was untreated for schizophrenia. She became convinced that the baby inside her was a 'child of satan'. Voices told her to kill the baby. She then took a razor blade and began to cut the baby out of her stomach. She was admitted for treatment after losing a lot of blood. She was provided with treatment and recovered from her psychosis. She developed insight and was able to develop a normal and loving relationship with her child.
  • Deus
    320


    How can you distinguish the inner monologue that each human being is born with, with the schizophrenic voice?
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Perhaps do some research on this, it's fairly straight forward. I can tell you that for every 100 people I have known to take anti-psychotic medication, at least 80 of them are incredibly relieved and happy for the intrusive, persecutory and highly distressing thoughts and voices to be gone and to stop receiving command hallucinations, etc. Medication allows people to maintain relationships with others, hold down jobs, get on with hobbies, read and be productive. But of course, like anything else. it is not 100% and not perfect.
  • Deus
    320


    I have done my research I’m checking if you’ve done yours. Avoiding the question says to me you haven’t got a clue.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Sounds like I hit a nerve there. Did you have a bad experience with psychiatry?
  • Deus
    320


    You haven’t, most likely have misconstrued my tone.

    At this point I accept that no scientific answer is forthcoming.

    Although, I am riled as I had a brother who committed suicide in such an institute.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Although, I am riled as I had a brother who committed suicide in such an institute.Deus

    I'm sorry to hear that. Please accept my condolences.

    I have lost three people who have gone off medication and completed suicide as a result.
  • Deus
    320
    Evidence based biases such as these permeate the field as my dear brother committed suicide whilst on medication.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Of course. People on heart medication still die of heart attacks. My views are based on 30 years of working in mental health and drug services.

    It sounds to me like you are angry and that discussing this may descend into a personal attack. I am not interested in pursuing such things.
  • Deus
    320
    If I start feeling apathy to those who are oppressed then I know there’s something wrong.

    https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/10/i-went-undercover-to-expose-abuse-at-a-mental-health-hospital/
  • introbert
    333
    Would it be so terrible if you wish to avoid confrontation to generate less one-sided responses. I have made my post one-sided which any good argument does, but I think something that could improve psychiatry is if it wasn't polarized against the thing it treats. There should be some acceptance in the natural occurrence of mental disorder that this is part of the nature of the world. This would not be committing a naturalistic fallacy, and if it was accepting a bit of irrationality would go a long way.
  • Deus
    320


    He’s timid and that’s fine.
  • Deus
    320
    Whether this soft science or Micky mouse degree founded by Freud was intended to develop such a cult following that it become dogmatic and anti-scientific remains to be seen but yes it did in fact become so and various myths still perpetuated by it eventually become known as psychology remains at most like alchemy is to modern day chemistry.

    They never could turn crap into gold.
  • introbert
    333
    Yep, some of that soul is in me. I have proved to be too good at learning for my own good, and pieces of psycho-babble have made an impression on me. A big issue is the way people learn without an irony shield. Someone will become a psychiatric doctor without deflecting a single arrow drenched in that poison directed directly at their head. Yet when they are faced with criticism they will turn their psychiatric learning against you and see all sorts of aberrations. There are heaps of criticisms to be made.
  • Deus
    320


    The problem with this particular field which so badly wants to be accepted as a science is the illusion of progress.

    That is not long ago human beings were tortured, beaten up and killed all in the name of therapy. And as the link I’ve posted above demonstrates it’s still going on.

    The profession up to and including director level of such trusts and establishments needs to reflectively ask itself … am I really required here? Am I helping my fellow member of the human species or am I imprisoning them?

    And if those questions do not play on their conscience ask am I making a profit from their misery ? Will my next car be a Ferrari or an Aston Martin?
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    My take on psychiatry: It's a question not of kind but of degree. For instance, grief (maybe intense and lasts a few months after which it's business as usual) is normal but depression (intense + lasts for years) is not. The long and short of it - time & intensity of mental & emotional states separates the well from the unwell i.e. we're all mad, but for different durations.

    Off topic?

    A thousand apologies. — Ranjeet
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    finally an intelligent discourse that I read with interest, with voracious interest in "what's next in this series of thoughts."

    The picture you so nicely depicted in an easy-flowing, yet thought-provoking and at times hard-to-follow script is this (to recoup for my own interest) : psychiatric illness is a healing mechanism that is used in bodies of people whose body needs healing, but the body can't provide that healing. The psychiatrist affects the mind of his patient; he acts as a body that healed itself and therefore no more mental illness is needed. Except, of course, it puts the donkey in front of the cart: healing the mind is futile, when the body is still damaged. (This is a bit of a criticism of the theoretical aspect or approach.)

    Being a mind-healer, the field of psychiatry becomes the body that heals the mind, and the mind of the field of psychiatry attaches itself to the mind of the patient to effect the healing process.

    So the question becomes, does the psychiatric profession as such CREATED the concept of mental disease, which mental disease is in effect a form of an attempt to heal physical ailments; or else the mentally ill created the field of psychiatry, inasmuch as it created a sort of healing apparatus to help itself?

    It is an interesting theory, and in a way it's true. Modern psychiatry has gone away from the "healing by talking" of the schools of Freud, Jung and others; that route has been renegaded to the profession of psychology. Modern psychiatry pushes drugs, and their role has reduced to 1. finding the right meds for their patients, and 2. finding the right dosage for the same. So in fact your theory is right on, inasmuch as the healing's focus by psychiatry has been re-routed from trying to heal the mind (by talking) to heal the body (by medication).
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    They never could turn crap into gold.Deus

    In a way that's true. No psychiatric patient ever achieves full recovery. The recovery percentage (which I define as a spectrum, similar to the spectrum of autism: some get much better compared to their acute stage, some get just somewhat better, and some never get better; and at the onset of disease, at the acute stage, it is impossible to predict how the patient were to fare) is variable an unpredictable on an individual basis. The rate of recovery quality can only be established on a statistical basis.

    I like to quote this: (A mother talking about her schizophrenic son) "Oh, Johnny is getting much better, he is starting a program that will get him a job." Ten years later, same mother, same son: "Oh, Johnny is really getting better, he started a new program that will get him a job and he has a nice new girlfriend." Yet in another ten years: "Oh, Johnny is really well, he is starting a new program, and has a new girlfriend, a very nice girl".

    The miraculous thing is that Johnny IS getting better year-by-year, yet, on a decade-by-decade basis, he is the same. It is not that he is on a constantly recurring loop of getting better then worse; no, there is no loop. This is in a way a paradox, a self-contradiction, that he is constantly getting better, yet his condition does not improve. Yet it's true. A bit of an unexplained or unintuitive phenomenon, like those we hear of happening in Quantum Physics; best not to try to explain, but to accept as an inexplicable fact.
  • Deus
    320
    You made a statement without providing proof then came up with some sort of story.

    Didn’t know I was in the fiction section of the site. It seems to me than that all conclusions and accepted facts of this field are not in fact so but narratives of the field itself clinging on to existence by self-justification to the point of inventing and making up lies.

    Lies that are easily seen for what they are. Such bold assertion are not philosophical but made up bullshit by uneducated and ignorant minds.

    When such uneducated and ignorant minds are practicing psychologist then it’s harmful and dangerous.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    You made a statement without providing proof then came up with some sort of story.Deus

    1. Whom are you addressing?
    2. You are asking for proof. That's a tall order as science itself can't provide proofs. (Many threads on this forum about that, so look them up; not interested in discussing this claim here.)
    3. Philosophy is not about empirical proofs; it is about a priori proofs, which it does on empirical stuff, once it establishes some premisses assumed to be true, (but not proven to be true) on which it builds logical conclusions.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    Lies that are easily seen for what they are. Such bold assertion are not philosophical but made up bullshit by uneducated and ignorant minds.

    When such uneducated and ignorant minds are practicing psychologist then it’s harmful and dangerous.
    Deus
    I and the Opening Poster did not practice psychologist (to use your vernacular) at all. We talked about psychiatry in a vein of philosophical approach. We never purported to offer a cure, a treatment. We did not promise to make anyone feel better. We simply discussed how the profession's mechanism could be looked at from a philosophical point of view.
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