...
U
8 years ago in #psychology by invisiblegorilla (57)
$394.71
- Past Payouts $394.71
- - Author $296.40
- - Curators $98.31
82 votes
- berniesanders: $227.78
- nextgencrypto: $40.92
- silversteem: $33.40
- donkeypong: $21.65
- silver: $14.51
- laonie: $9.73
- cryptogee: $6.69
- justin: $5.38
- eeks: $4.64
- andrarchy: $4.55
- steemservices: $3.75
- infovore: $3.47
- kevinwong: $3.45
- nabilov: $1.99
- knozaki2015: $1.68
- chhayll: $1.05
- somebody: $0.96
- kimziv: $0.88
- paco: $0.72
- sigmajin: $0.72
- and 62 more
Well how about that! It's almost like simplistic, one-size-fits-all approaches to psychiatry aren't the best we can do.< /snark >
I think this issue is pretty interesting. I recently became a father, and it's led me to think a lot about how it's best to teach my daughter to deal with these sorts of issues. I hope you write more here!
Thanks for your support - and congratulations on your recent fatherhood!
Jonathan, bravo for posting this brave and much-needed article. My mother, who was finally successful in ending her own life on the seventh attempt (that I know of) in 2006, was experimented on like a guinea pig by the British psychiatric establishment. They insisted that it was her 'brain chemistry' causing the problems; and that the 'right' medication at the 'right' dosage would get her back on track. Seeing the side effects of that shit, which made things far worse rather than helping, was pretty tough, I can tell you. The last thing the British 'experts' did for my mum was to 'give' her electro-shock 'therapy, which 'miraculously' had the effect of her suddenly wanting to go home (!) from the madhouse they'd consigned her to. Can you guess what happened next? Yup, in her desire to avoid further torture, she obviously figured out that she'd better get it right this time, and gassed herself in her car....
What you've written here is important, and needs more exposure. Upvoted, followed, and kudos sent your way for being brave enough to say it despite the people who think you're a danger to humanity for doing so. On behalf of my mother, I'd encourage you to continue with your research, despite the protestations and convictions of those people and their 'snake oil' medication/'therapies'...
Thanks for your support and I'm sorry to hear about your mother.
Of course there's billions of dollars involved here. It's always about the money. I read a study a couple years back where 10 perfectly healthy, well-adjusted kids were sent to 10 different doctors, with (false) minor complaints of being fidgety, bored or hyperactive. ALL 10 were "diagnosed" with attention deficit disorders and prescribed dangerous chemicals to poison themselves with. Good thing the State is looking out for us!
Without government, who would block the sale of life-saving drugs?
i love molyneux. this was a good one. have you seen the: There Is No Such Thing as Mental Illness? it's a good one. can't say i agree with his analysis of the gmo situation though.
Yeah, I've seen it. I don't recall his comments on GMOs, though.
apparently, they are perfectly safe and questioning is silly.
@invisiblegorilla I am glad someone finally wrote something on this topic. I've got my own hypothesis on 'disorders', and it's definitely similar to yours. Would you be interested in doing a podcast regarding this topic with me? I think there is a long dialogue we would be able to have, to certainly fill in information gaps in this topic.
You can find me on the steemit.chat under stephen.polsky if you want to discuss this further.
Thanks for your feedback. I'll find you in the chat, later.
Great post. I've held these same convictions but can't say I have much of an educated basis for them. I've just experienced the power of my own words in helping me overcome my own negative emotions. I don't deny there are chemical imbalances that make the battle harder for others, but I think our culture's tendency to label and medicate causes many who could overcome these challenges without medication to shirk personal responsibility.
Thanks for your feedback, jasonstaggers. I would recommend looking into the long-term adverse effects of many of these psychiatric drugs. Ironically, they are often the cause of these so-called imbalances.
Yeah. It's no coincidence that most (possibly all) of the mass shooters recently were on psychotropic meds.
Appreciating your point about the power of words, @invisiblegorrilla. While it's true that many people genuinely suffer from these "disorders", it's also true that healing starts from within, and a paradigm shift is in order to get there. Healing is truly limitless, but when one is locked into a belief system that there's something broken or insurmountable within themselves, one is doomed because they convince themselves that "healing is impossible". Also, Big Pharma is the most powerful industry on the planet, and they directly profit off consumers who turn to western medicine for relief--which is unfortunately the leading cause of death in America. https://steemit.com/health/@gardenofeden/western-medicine-is-the-leading-cause-of-death-in-america
I'm glad you found my approach valuable - and sorry for being slow to respond!
@invisiblegorilla You write: "I want to acknowledge that throughout this article, I’ve written words such as ‘disorder’ and ‘illness’ in quotations. This is not to minimize or negate the seriousness of sensations people who have these words applied to them, experience. However, I simply refuse to speak in the language of the pharmaceutical industry and large proportions of the psychiatric community."
You're far from alone in my experience. I personally always write "ADHD" in quote marks, for example, since I know how that particular reification was invented.
When I first heard of it some years ago, it was customary for anyone who didn't accept the American Psychiatric Association's perception of reality to be accused of being a Scientologist. I don't know if that holds true still. Perhaps things have moved on (I haven't involved myself in any discussions on this topic for a long time). My views on the subject were more likely to find me accused of having no medical or other professional training, to which my response has always been that, when people speak to me of the DSM and its stories, they are no longer in the world of medicine; we are in the world of scam artistry where I've invariably been on much more solid ground than they have.
Hey bobcollier, thanks for sharing. I think I recall Robert Whitaker talking about how Scientology was used to discredit the critics of psychiatry in his book, Anatomy of an Epidemic.
Yes, it did seem to be that "You must be a Scientologist" was a stock response to anybody who questioned the official line. There seems to have been a kind of war going on between the Church of Scientology and psychiatry, the American Psychiatric Association in particular, for a long time. I learn from your introductory YouTube video that you're from England. So am I, and I live in Australia now. Years ago when I was exploring what I choose to call "the psychiatric labels scam", I found that advantageous because my thinking on these things wasn't trained by the direct to consumer advertising that Americans have been and are subjected to. Speaking of which, you might be interested in the work of John Breeding, author of The Wildest Colts Make The Best Horses.
Thanks for the recommendation. Based on the Amazon description, it sounds like quite an interesting read.
He has an interesting website too at www.wildestcolts.com
psychiatry is attempting to pathologize personality. they admit themselves that they have never brought about a single cure, ever. not one. i keep finding people who say that, short of actual physiological damage (TBI, etc) the place to start is with diet. who would have guessed that what you build your body out of has a great effect on how it functions. try building a car out of marshmallows and see how far you get. mmmm marshmallows.
thanks for the post.
Both a healthy diet and regular exercise are important contributors to the maintenance of psychological well-being.
Thanks for your feedback.
Hello I featured you in my Top 5 Psychology Gems, HereThanks for the good read.
All the above problems were addressed by a Dr. Abram Hoffer over 50 years ago. High dose Niacin B3.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Hoffer
These do not require a Doctor, they require you to educate yourself and put back the missing nutrients into the body.
http://www.doctoryourself.com/niacinreviews.html
You appear to have overlooked one of the central points of my article. There are no objective tests for schizophrenia. Thus, claiming to have discovered a 'cure' for a 'disease' that cannot be objectively defined does not make any sense.
You are trying to make sense of the current medical paradigm where it makes no sense. Change the paradigm, 'doctoryourself'
You have deleted/changed your comments and are clearly not interested in what I have to say. Thus, this will be my last response.
The problem with the article is that you don't wish to call mental health issues like schizophrenia or bipolar an illness. It is an illness and can be 'easily' cured with the correct information and nutrient. This political correctness doesn't make the condition less real. I have first hand knowledge of schizophrenia, it is a dis-ease i.e. not at ease, but there is a medication solution, if you can call a vitamin like Niacin B3 a medicine.
I deleted, changed etc because I was trying to clarrify a response. You have, clearly, no understanding of schizophenia and write a blog on it. You insults people who have these very real mental conditions. To defend your position, you clearly did not read the links I gave. To say it is your last response is passive aggressive, by cutting the lines of communication.
@invisiblegorilla, I think this is a valuable piece. I ran a class on exactly this issue this summer. There are several resources from that listed on the Second Session, Afternoon sections on this page
https://sites.google.com/site/gswnaturalscience2016/home/neuroscience
It might be helpful to draw the distinction between a disease (which has a known cause and possibly treatments) and a syndrome, which is just a pattern of symptoms. AIDS was a syndrome; HIV is a disease caused by a virus. Everything in the current edition of the DSM is a syndrome. Things like schizophrenia will become diseases when we learn more, just like Huntington's and Parkinson's are diseases because we know what causes them. Towards that end, the NIH is hoping to replace the DSM with another scheme that focuses more on cause and effect, but as this paper shows, it is very much a work in progress.
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00309/full
Thanks for your response, plotbot2015. The problem with your HIV comparison is that, unlike schizophrenia, there are laboratory tests to determine whether someone is afflicted by HIV. Before you can study the etiology of a particular ailment, you have to demonstrate that it is both valid and can be reliably diagnosed. Neither of which is the case for schizophrenia.
Yes, you are correct. At this moment in time, there's no test. In the early 1980s, there was no test for HIV, either. That's why they called it a syndrome.
https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/aids-timeline/
But we'll get there, eventually. I realize that is not much comfort to the people suffering now.
Correct that funding often comes from diagnosis. In order to gain access to services there needs to be a diagnosis. So often children are labelled before, correctly or incorrectly, in a bid to access valuable help.
Access to help because a professional believes they need extra support without a diagnosis first, could possibly lead to less incorrect labeling and rushed diagnosis. But, the system doesn't work like that. Just my opinion though.
@invisiblegorilla do you have children? I have three. Just based on personal experience, you're wrong. I say that as the father of three and as one who for almost my entire life believed as you do. I have changed my mind.
I appreciate your interest but anecdotes aren't substitutes for evidence.
Just based on my personal experience, you're right. I have two children.
When I read your title, I was about as hellbent on ripping you to shreds -- but your words make perfect sense. As a psychology student (a few classes away from my BS degree << ironic, no?) and having been assessed as an adult with Asperger's, I know from my own experience that the psychiatric & psychological field is way off base when it comes to "treating" quirky folks because popping a pill is so much easier than actually doing the WORK to help people assimilate to their environment.
That's not to say we should be lemmings.
BIG PHARMA can kiss my A**. While there are some people who require medication, it's my opinion that it should be the very last resort.
I suffer with depression. My husband has bouts of PTSD from his military service and volunteer work as a fireman. He's seen some terrible things and sometimes he feels transported back to them based on whatever might have triggered him.
It's sad that we are labeling so many of our children with illnesses when in fact, I believe we have given them this course on silver platter instead of allowing them to learn how to cope. I wrote a bit about it in my blog Sticks and Stones have their place. I'd be interested in hearing your opinion about it. https://steemit.com/mindset/@merej99/mindset-sticks-and-stones-have-their-place
As for language... In the U.S. we've gotten very lazy. It's easier to say "I Have" instead of "I experience" or "I suffer with". But let me just conclude with this: I, as well as my son, was born with a form of autism, therefore we have autism. The depression, anxiety, anger that stems from that is something we suffer and experience. But we find ways to cope and play well with others.
Thank you for the thought-provoking post. :)
Hi merej99, sorry for the late response. I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts on the issues I raised. I have not dedicated much time to the study of autism but from what I've heard, it is still rather mysterious, even in the eyes of the experts.
Regarding your post, I want to say how sorry I am for your experiences with school bullies. Although, I would quibble with your generalized description of kids as 'assholes'.
Having raised 3 boys and having been a kid...I am pretty confident that kids are 'assholes' - or maybe I should rephrase that as 'kids have the potential, and often use their superpowers, to be assholes.' LOL
Asperger's, which was placed on the autism scale in the DSM-V, is definitely somewhat of a mystery by the simple fact that no two people on the scale are exactly alike in the severity of their symptoms - which is why traditional therapies will never work (in my opinion). But this thread just gave me an idea for a post!
find me on steemit chat please
This post has been linked to from another place on Steem.
About linkback bot. Please upvote if you like the bot and want to support its development.