. 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. — introbert
Interesting. I do think there is something not quite right about psychiatry. Consider this, we do not understand how consciousness works, how one experiences, behaves or believes what they believe. — Benj96
The only time I think drug therapies are appropriate is when someone is of immediate harm to either themselves or others. In the case of actively attempting suicide or murder. Only in these cases is using a drug to blunt a person's consciousness justified to simply buy some time to allow psychologists to help them. — Benj96
Furthermore the use of the word "delusional" by a psychiatrist to justify medicating is somewhat a comical irony in that the psychiatrist doesn't know what "reality" truly is to justify judging another's as delusional. — Benj96
I think psychology is the more prudent approach. Without an arsenal of vaguely useful drugs not fully understood in their action, the psychologist must contend with an unwell mind through discourse, conversing and offering therapy through communication. This seems much less invasive and controlling. And has been proven to have good results. — Benj96
It can take tremendous therapy to make a person with schizophrenia understand they are schizophrenic and can only be done with meds usually. If you want people to not have to deal with taking antipsychotics for their whole life, you should be in favor of them taking them until they are stable enough not to ruin their life/hurt themselves/hurt others/break laws, etc., which goes beyond just taking them until one is not of immediate danger to themselves or others. — ToothyMaw
If I said that aliens are coming to earth to steal our gold reserves to create conductors for their spaceships as they go on an unstoppable galactic conquest to snatch all sentient species' cannabis, would you say: "I don't know if I can say that your reality is any less valid than mine?" — ToothyMaw
what would you offer as your solution? — Benj96
https://www.mentalhealthforum.net/forum/threads/david-smail-1938-2014-pioneer-of-the-social-materialist-analysis-of-psychological-distress.130996/Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety (1984) showed how an increasingly competitive, unequal society spawns chronic insecurity. The book challenged the notion that anxiety and depression amount to a mental illness denoting that something is wrong with the individual sufferer. For the most part distress and anxiety represent an entirely rational response to the sufferer’s situation. The role of the therapist is therefore not in ‘curing’ the individual, but rather to negotiate demystification and to provide insight into the effects of the problems in the sufferer’s world, based on the sufferer and the therapist’s shared subjective understanding.
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. — J. Krishnamurti
Maybe you won't find don't find it humorous, if you consider the reason for that. Psychiatrists appear as enemies of humanity in other novels too.I found it humorous that in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the evil antagonists were the Psychiatrists — introbert
There's no other medical field or profession that has been so much accused for human abuse as psychiatry. — Alkis Piskas
Make it a completely legal process at every step. No detainment or forced treatment unless the person commits a serious criminal act, especially not at the speculation of potential harm. The view on reality should be that subjective experience is reality: the reality is the person is hearing voices and the reality is the psychiatric interpretation; the reality is the patient thinks he is God. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main reason from a philosophical standpoint, is it is not a good precedent to set that there is a standard of objectivity for the subjectivity of the underdog in a conflict while the favorite has different rules where his subjectivity is real (subjectivism). This is a philosophical challenge. There's more obviously, but I am interested particularly in why psychiatry takes such a powerful advantage against vulnerable and sick people. I think if it wasn't so keen on infringing people's liberties, people would be much more well behaved in dealing with them. I guess there are no lessons to learn from history about people's desire for liberty and their violent defense of it, and it is merely convenient that taking it away escalates and empowers them to force treatment. — introbert
However at the root of their belief - the sensation that "something alien/something unfamiliar" is coming or occurring in which our values (precious gold reserves) are being eroded (stolen) to do something sinister (theft - in this case cannabis) seems to be plausible. — Benj96
I think then, that schizophrenics articulate genuine humans concerns that we all frequently suspect, but are unable to use sensible means to describe them. Their imagination runs wild with descriptors. But what they are describing is still comprehensible. We just lack the compassion to trust they have some logic deeply engrained in their superficial absurdities. — Benj96
The question is then why has their brain failed to use useful language to describe their anguish? It appears as though their innate language model has departed from their limbic system (emotions/instinctual threat perception). — Benj96
I feel very bad! It's awful! In my country, Orthodox priests also are asent to Germany to become to study psychology. I have not heard anything about psychiatry. But even the need to study psychology shows the failure of the Church to handle the spiritual needs and problems of their parishioners and in general to give useful advice to anyone in need.Priests spring to mind. How do you feel about Catholic priests who are also psychiatrists? — Tom Storm
Religion should not look necessarily like that. E.g. Buddhism doesn't. — Alkis Piskas
We have an extremely rude person here, ToothyMaw, who is either a psychiatrist himself, of the kind I mentioned, or a fanatic pro psychiatrist. A perfect example of what I was talking about.
Of course, I expected reactions from some people, but not such as that! Despicable.
Here's what I just read from this person, which I reproduce (copy-paste) below, before it is deleted or edited: — Alkis Piskas
Of course there are. All kinds of proffessions contain Buddhists in their ranks. But I don't think that a Buddhist psychiatrist will be of the kind I mentioned, although this is not impossible. We are talking about "numbers", not individual cases. And I talked mainly about massive human abuse. And of course, for godssake, I didn't say that all or even most psychiatrists, of any religion or no religion, are of the kind I mentioned. I believe they are the minority. But enough big to produce human damage. And, I emphasize, more than any other medical --or, in fact, any other-- profession,Plenty of psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists draw from Buddhism or are Buddhists. Buddhist psychiatrist Mark Epstein springs to mind. — Tom Storm
But I don't think that a Buddhist psychiatrist will be of the kind I mentioned, although this is not impossible. We are talking about "numbers", not individual cases. And I talked mainly about massive human abuse. And of course, for godssake, I didn't say that all or even most psychiatrists, of any religion or no religion, are of the kind I mentioned. I believe they are the minority. — Alkis Piskas
You actually think we shouldn't try to get people who hear voices and think they are God to understand that their beliefs, and the voices they hear, aren't rooted in reality? We should just encourage people to listen to whatever instructions their voices give them, if they give instructions? — ToothyMaw
https://www.madintheuk.com/2022/10/interview-with-jaakko-seikkula-creator-of-the-open-dialogue-approach/Well, the main idea is to listen carefully to each participant in the conversation, accepting their comments without exceptions or conditions. Within this unconditional respect for their voices, people start to listen to themselves. They learn more about their own story. This is why, in the dialogical approach, we do not look to find some right story, or some right commentary on the story of the person in crisis. Really, what is most important is the response in the here-and-now while speaking about the important issues of one’s life. The most difficult and most important experiences most often do not have any words, such that it would be possible to have an explicit narrative about it. They emerge in being moved, e.g. in an emotional reaction, by the things being told. This is the most important moment for a dialogical practitioner.
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In my mind, a much more effective way is to think about ‘psychotic’ behaviour as an embodied psychological response to extreme stress. ‘Psychotic’ experiences are one form of defence that the embodied mind uses to protect itself against a total disaster. They are not pathological, nor signs of an illness, but necessary survival strategies that everyone of us may need in an extreme situation. The extreme situation may be something that is occurring in the present, or it may be drawing on earlier experiences in a person’s life. In hallucinations, the person is most probably speaking about real incidents that have happened, but which they do not yet have any other words, other than ‘psychotic’ ones, to express it with. — Jaakko Seikkula
In the 1980s psychiatric services in Western Lapland had one of the worst incidences of ‘schizophrenia’. Now they have the best documented outcomes in the Western World. For example, around 75% of those experiencing psychosis have returned to work or study within 2 years and only around 20% are still taking antipsychotic medication at 2 year follow-up.
Open Dialogue is not an alternative to standard psychiatric services, it is the psychiatric service in Western Lapland. It is a comprehensive approach with well-integrated inpatient and outpatient services.
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