Once again I had to face the idea that psychiatric diagnoses would be scientifically valid and for the diagnozed a good thing to happen. As a result, I spent the past weekend discussing the matter on my Danish blog. Here's the first part of the discussion.
The idea was uttered by someone whose blog I quite frequently visit, and whose overall - critically - political/social views I widely share. Of interest in the context might be, that the concerned blogger has a diagnozed teenage (?) son, who obviously is on Ritalin, while both blogger and son experience diagnosis and "treatment" as helpful - so far.
Which essentially made me react, was the concerned blogger's call for more children to get diagnozed, the diagnozing procedure to be speeded up, and thus to provide access to psychiatric "treatment" for far more children, than those who already are psychiatrized in today's Denmark - which actually already is a disturbingly large number - tendency: skyrocketing - and, in my opinion, far too disturbingly large a number, as I regard one single psychiatrized child to be one single psychiatrized child too many. Especially when the treatment includes drugs, which it almost always does. As drugs, apart from electroshock, are the only "help" psychiatry as such can provide, while the industry becomes increasingly reluctant to let go its hold of and refer even children to really helpful but with psychiatry competing treatment options like therapy without, first of all, seeking to keep them dependent on its own "services", i.e. drugs.
Another reason for me to react was the unlimited trust in psychiatry as a true science, that had produced scientific evidence of existential crises to be genetically caused biological illnesses, I had observed. Not least because it also made me, as mentioned a frequent reader - and commenter - at the concerned person's blog, a genetically defective, sick-in-the-head individual. Oh boy! Well, this, of course, was my ego feeling hurt in its pride. Why I abstained for a day to write the announced post about the matter, working to get a grip on myself, or my ego, again. No matter how indirect a statement about me being defective and sick in my head, it still can be a major trigger to my ego - trigger like in trauma, yes - and it takes its time to retrieve the Buddhist calm that is so wonderfully indifferent to whatever others might think about me and my brain.
Nevertheless, I posted a short entry, providing some basics in regard to the question, if there really is scientific evidence for psychiatry's claims about the genetic/biological nature of existential cirses:
Robert Whitaker, Mad In America. Review here. Interview with Robert Whitaker here. Both very informative, while one, of course, doesn't get round reading the book in order to get the whole argumentation.
Mary Boyle, Schizophrenia. A Scientific Delusion? Review here. The ultimate disclosure of psychiatric "science" to be junk-science.
Finally, there is Bruce Lipton's lecture "The Biology of Perception", that can be viewed as a playlist at YouTube.
The maybe fastest way to get an idea of how "scientifically proven" psychiatry's claims are, is to just have a look at Big Pharma's websites:
"The symptoms of schizophrenia are thought to be caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain." (my italics) - From abilify.com
"Doctors and researchers believe that it ["bipolar disorder"] may be caused by chemicals imbalances in the brain." (my italics) - From seroquel.com
"It is believed that ADHD is caused by either a lower level, or an imbalance, of chemicals, called neurotransmitters." (my italics) - From concerta.net
"There are many theories about the cause of depression. One of the most commonly accepted theories suggests that two naturally occurring substances, serotonin and norepinephrine, are believed to affect core mood and pain symptoms of depression." (my italics) - From cymbalta.com
"Two natural chemicals in the brain, serotonin and norepinephrine, are thought to be linked to this condition, as well as to other anxiety disorders and depression. Prescription medications that affect these chemicals may help eliminate the symptoms of GAD." (my italics) - From effexorxr.com
The list is long. There is virtually not one among all these sites, that doesn't make use of a wording like the one, I italicized in the quotations.The question is, would anyone, especially a company that wants nothing more than sell its product, hedge their bets like this, always the risk included, that people stumble over it (although most people unfortunately don't), if there was any scientific proof of the statements to be true?
BTW: I like that the responsible people at AstraZeneca obviously aren't even capable of correct spelling - I used the copy-paste-method for the quotations. Makes me wonder how capable the people are, who are responsible for the company's research...
Showing posts with label Bruce Lipton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bruce Lipton. Show all posts
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
Friday, 12 September 2008
T4
Now they really shout it from the roof tops: "Schizophrenia's riddle solved - with Danish help". As a matter of fact. It's all about the same research I wrote about here (and here).
"Just like in the case of Downs syndrome it [the research results] opens up for considerations about embryo checks in regard to abortion", the spokeswoman for SIND, a Danish user organization, says according to the article.
Fasten seat belts, folks! We're heading straight towards a refined version of what went on in the Third Reich. And even user organizations applaud enthusiastically...
Make sure to have a look at this before you go down with major depression, thinking you'd really be genetically defective.
"Just like in the case of Downs syndrome it [the research results] opens up for considerations about embryo checks in regard to abortion", the spokeswoman for SIND, a Danish user organization, says according to the article.
Fasten seat belts, folks! We're heading straight towards a refined version of what went on in the Third Reich. And even user organizations applaud enthusiastically...
Make sure to have a look at this before you go down with major depression, thinking you'd really be genetically defective.
Thursday, 21 August 2008
Here's to my therapist II - Why "mental illness" is neither genetically caused nor genetically predisposed
I've got some really, really bad news for psychiatrists, parents, and "patients" who believe they can blame (their) genes for (their) "mental illness", in one way or the other. Actually, it's really bad news for everybody, who believes, they can blame anything on (their) genes.
I found the video below yesterday on Gianna's blog, when I had a look at the archives. It's the first of seven parts of a talk by cell-biologist Bruce Lipton.
What Bruce Lipton is explaining in the video-series actually is a scientific, biological proof for the trauma-model to be true, and the bio-medical, genetic model to be, well yeah, rubbish.
While today's genetics take a starting point in a model, that says genes produce proteins, that then activate behaviour, Bruce Lipton had wondered how it, under these circumstances, could be possible for living organisms to continuously show behaviour, even after their genes were removed.
He found out, that modern genetics had thrown away the decisive part of the whole, behaviour-creating process: genes do not produce proteins, but transmitters, signals do activate genes as a blueprint for new proteins. While these signals are sent by an effector, that in its turn is activated by a receptor, who, in the first place, had been activated by another, initial signal. And where did this initial signal come from? Well - and now it's definitely time for everyone, who doesn't want to know about the trauma-model to stop reading, and pretend nothing ever happened! The three monkeys, you know - it comes from the living organism's environment.
All behaviour, all life, that finds expression in behaviour, is always, and no matter if we talk a single cell, or a highly complicated organism such as man, a reaction to this life's environment.
What then about findings, that show for instance "schizophrenics" to, sometimes, deviate genetically from "normal" people? The thing is, when a secondary signal doesn't find a protein inside the organism, that matches the situation, i.e. that would create behaviour appropriate in the given situation (or: behaviour, that would be an appropriate and functioning response to the initial, primary signal), and if now the situation is so complicated (as for example a double bind is), that the signal doesn't find an appropriate blueprint in the genes, either, that could provide the basis for the production of an appropriate protein, the blueprint, the genes, can be varied. Mutations are possible. But in contrast to today's common belief, mutations aren't random, they are adaptive. And they're not inborn, other than when they're a response to signals from the environment, the living organism found itself in before birth.
Thus the environment shapes the genes of the in it living organism. It is not the genes, that, because of some random mutation, produce, seen in relation to the environment, irrational, inappropriate, dysfunctional behaviour. And, of course, the varied blueprint, the mutated gene, can be varied "back to normal" whenever the environment changes and renders the variation superfluous.
Sorry, Mom and Dad, but we're back at "the schizophrenogenic mother" & Co., yes. Actually, we're at a point, where no kind of "inappropriate", "sick", dysfunctional behaviour can be blamed on anyone's genes, that is on anyone's individually inborn charcteristics, anymore. On a biological level, life is proteins, not genes. Genes are nothing but a plan. The house is built by signals and of proteins, and which house is built depends on the ground, the environment. Not on predetermined plans. Every organism carries the plans for all imaginable houses inside itself, the possibility to change plans included. Thus, everything is possible. Which in the end becomes manifested is a question of what signals the environment sends - and of how the individual perceives its environment. Which is dependent on the environment that to start with has formed the individual's perception of its environment.
Brought to the level of human behaviour, it is perception (of our environment) that controls behaviour, not biology. While the way, we perceive our environment ("belief" in Bruce Lipton's words), in itself is acquired, is a reaction to environmental signals. Here treatment options like therapy, meditation, etc. enter the picture. A belief can be changed. Everything becomes possible. Provided that the individual becomes aware of its beliefs.
Bruce Lipton's findings correspond perfectly with what many of us, who haven't bought into the biological model - and both those who've had the experience of extreme states of mind themselves, and professionals as Laing and Mosher - have experienced: change the environment (for example by changing diet and exercise habits, or by moving faaar away from home*...), and you'll change the behaviour. And they correspond just as perfectly with the findings of neuroscience in the field of neuroplasticity.
Nevertheless, this also has a political dimension (discrimination, eugenics), and I fear, no matter how hard the scientific evidence, everything will be done to suppress findings like Bruce Lipton's. Bruce Lipton has written a book about his findings, The Biology of Belief, which I suppose to be a somewhat more rewarding and interesting read than, just as an example, Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight, or Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind (find the hurrays yourself, it's not an impossible task). The Biology of Belief was published in 2005, the videos at YouTube were posted in November 2007, and this is the first time, I've ever heard of it (which certainly isn't due to me not following what's going on).
Thank you, Gianna, for posting this!!!
BTW: NAMI recently reacted to the new findings about mutated chromosomes in relation to so-called "schizophrenia", I wrote about here and here. NAMI's report is, astonishingly though rightly, not half as enthusiastic as Thomas Werge's statements in the Danish media.
To all the Jill Bolte Taylors out there: you're definitely looking in the wrong place, folks. To all you therapists out there, advocating the biological, genetical version of the Stress-Vulnerability-Model: stop disempowering and patronizing people with fairy stories about genes, that are nothing but junk-science! And to everyone, who's out there, leaning comfortably back on disability, and in front of your TV, all day long, blaming your genes for your allegedly unchangeable and uncontrollable suffering (I know, now I'm controversial again): Belief controls behaviour, not biology. Take responsibility! If not for yourself, so at least for others. By stopping to diffuse junk-science's untruths about genes and biology, and by stopping to try to silence biopsychiatry's (junk-science's) critics.
_______________
* Now, no one should think, it's enough just to pull up stakes and move to Timbuktu. That's something I've tried numerous times, without any lasting success. The problem remains the same. Only to pull up outside-stakes is never enough. It's also always the inner ones, the "belief", that has to be pulled up. - Although, it helps to move to Timbuktu. Unless that's where your "loved ones" actually do live...
I found the video below yesterday on Gianna's blog, when I had a look at the archives. It's the first of seven parts of a talk by cell-biologist Bruce Lipton.
What Bruce Lipton is explaining in the video-series actually is a scientific, biological proof for the trauma-model to be true, and the bio-medical, genetic model to be, well yeah, rubbish.
While today's genetics take a starting point in a model, that says genes produce proteins, that then activate behaviour, Bruce Lipton had wondered how it, under these circumstances, could be possible for living organisms to continuously show behaviour, even after their genes were removed.
He found out, that modern genetics had thrown away the decisive part of the whole, behaviour-creating process: genes do not produce proteins, but transmitters, signals do activate genes as a blueprint for new proteins. While these signals are sent by an effector, that in its turn is activated by a receptor, who, in the first place, had been activated by another, initial signal. And where did this initial signal come from? Well - and now it's definitely time for everyone, who doesn't want to know about the trauma-model to stop reading, and pretend nothing ever happened! The three monkeys, you know - it comes from the living organism's environment.
All behaviour, all life, that finds expression in behaviour, is always, and no matter if we talk a single cell, or a highly complicated organism such as man, a reaction to this life's environment.
What then about findings, that show for instance "schizophrenics" to, sometimes, deviate genetically from "normal" people? The thing is, when a secondary signal doesn't find a protein inside the organism, that matches the situation, i.e. that would create behaviour appropriate in the given situation (or: behaviour, that would be an appropriate and functioning response to the initial, primary signal), and if now the situation is so complicated (as for example a double bind is), that the signal doesn't find an appropriate blueprint in the genes, either, that could provide the basis for the production of an appropriate protein, the blueprint, the genes, can be varied. Mutations are possible. But in contrast to today's common belief, mutations aren't random, they are adaptive. And they're not inborn, other than when they're a response to signals from the environment, the living organism found itself in before birth.
Thus the environment shapes the genes of the in it living organism. It is not the genes, that, because of some random mutation, produce, seen in relation to the environment, irrational, inappropriate, dysfunctional behaviour. And, of course, the varied blueprint, the mutated gene, can be varied "back to normal" whenever the environment changes and renders the variation superfluous.
Sorry, Mom and Dad, but we're back at "the schizophrenogenic mother" & Co., yes. Actually, we're at a point, where no kind of "inappropriate", "sick", dysfunctional behaviour can be blamed on anyone's genes, that is on anyone's individually inborn charcteristics, anymore. On a biological level, life is proteins, not genes. Genes are nothing but a plan. The house is built by signals and of proteins, and which house is built depends on the ground, the environment. Not on predetermined plans. Every organism carries the plans for all imaginable houses inside itself, the possibility to change plans included. Thus, everything is possible. Which in the end becomes manifested is a question of what signals the environment sends - and of how the individual perceives its environment. Which is dependent on the environment that to start with has formed the individual's perception of its environment.
Brought to the level of human behaviour, it is perception (of our environment) that controls behaviour, not biology. While the way, we perceive our environment ("belief" in Bruce Lipton's words), in itself is acquired, is a reaction to environmental signals. Here treatment options like therapy, meditation, etc. enter the picture. A belief can be changed. Everything becomes possible. Provided that the individual becomes aware of its beliefs.
Bruce Lipton's findings correspond perfectly with what many of us, who haven't bought into the biological model - and both those who've had the experience of extreme states of mind themselves, and professionals as Laing and Mosher - have experienced: change the environment (for example by changing diet and exercise habits, or by moving faaar away from home*...), and you'll change the behaviour. And they correspond just as perfectly with the findings of neuroscience in the field of neuroplasticity.
Nevertheless, this also has a political dimension (discrimination, eugenics), and I fear, no matter how hard the scientific evidence, everything will be done to suppress findings like Bruce Lipton's. Bruce Lipton has written a book about his findings, The Biology of Belief, which I suppose to be a somewhat more rewarding and interesting read than, just as an example, Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight, or Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind (find the hurrays yourself, it's not an impossible task). The Biology of Belief was published in 2005, the videos at YouTube were posted in November 2007, and this is the first time, I've ever heard of it (which certainly isn't due to me not following what's going on).
Thank you, Gianna, for posting this!!!
BTW: NAMI recently reacted to the new findings about mutated chromosomes in relation to so-called "schizophrenia", I wrote about here and here. NAMI's report is, astonishingly though rightly, not half as enthusiastic as Thomas Werge's statements in the Danish media.
To all the Jill Bolte Taylors out there: you're definitely looking in the wrong place, folks. To all you therapists out there, advocating the biological, genetical version of the Stress-Vulnerability-Model: stop disempowering and patronizing people with fairy stories about genes, that are nothing but junk-science! And to everyone, who's out there, leaning comfortably back on disability, and in front of your TV, all day long, blaming your genes for your allegedly unchangeable and uncontrollable suffering (I know, now I'm controversial again): Belief controls behaviour, not biology. Take responsibility! If not for yourself, so at least for others. By stopping to diffuse junk-science's untruths about genes and biology, and by stopping to try to silence biopsychiatry's (junk-science's) critics.
_______________
* Now, no one should think, it's enough just to pull up stakes and move to Timbuktu. That's something I've tried numerous times, without any lasting success. The problem remains the same. Only to pull up outside-stakes is never enough. It's also always the inner ones, the "belief", that has to be pulled up. - Although, it helps to move to Timbuktu. Unless that's where your "loved ones" actually do live...
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