If everything else doesn't pan out, there's one thing you can do to achieve god-like status, perfection, in life: become a parent. At least to judge from the reaction of lots of parents to the least suggestion that maybe, just maybe, they didn't only have an influence on any success achieved by their offspring, but maybe, just maybe, also on one or the other failure, suffering, in their kids' lives, these parents seem to think they don't have to take the least responsibility for their parenting as being a parent in their opinion obviously equals to being the perfect parent. Being a parent seems to, automatically, turn you into some kind of supernatural being, infallible, and beyond any criticism. By definition there's no such thing as "bad parenting", there's no such thing as child abuse, neglect, or any kind of dysfunctional communication patterns acted out by parents towards their children. Parents don't make mistakes. To insinuate that they maybe, just maybe, are no less imperfect, fallible, and human as everybody else, and to ask them to take responsibility for their imperfection, their fallibility, and their humanity, borders to a cardinal sin.
Lola's is a quite interesting comment in this regard. Her daughter's upbringing was nothing less than perfect. No one, least of all Lola herself, made as much as one single mistake raising her daughter. It was all beer and skittles. Well, until "mental illness" struck, like a bolt from the blue. Never mind that alone reading about a "mentally ill" mother (Lola), that is a mother with major "issues", which, since she herself ascribes them to "mental illness", hardly can be anything but unresolved -- and as we all know, unresolved trauma inevitably gets acted out and thus passed on to any children, if there are any --, and about an "ex", into the bargain also this "ex" with "mental health issues", which means divorce, would, and should!, have everybody with just a minimum of insight into the human psyche shudder, and wonder how the kids cope in such a dysfunctional environment. Never mind that reading about all this obvious dysfunctionality wouldn't, and shouldn't!, have anyone with just a minimum of insight into the human psyche be the least surprised when they hear that a kid raised in this dysfunctionality reacts to it developing coping strategies that then, ignoring any insight into the human psyche, and maintaining the delusion of the perfect parent, conveniently can be labelled "mental illness".
There they are, the kids. Initially wanted, not for their own sake, but as an extension of their parents (' egos), whose only purpose in life it is to confirm their parents' infallibility, their god-like perfection as persons. But God help the kids, if they can't or won't fulfil this purpose, if they have the rudeness, selfishness, and ungratefulness to protest and thus expose their parents' violence towards them! Since the violence can't and must not be, in their parents' minds, since acknowledging to it would equal to having to give up on their "God delusion", it has to be the child who's imperfect, indeed defective, diseased.
So, please! psychiatry, step in and silence these rude, selfish, and ungrateful brats' completely unfounded accusations against us with your (pseudo-)scientific, medical authority! Once and for all. Please, label these rude, selfish, and ungrateful brats insane, that is whatever they say or do a symptom of "mental illness", and thereby invalid, not worth being listened to, and please, if ever you can, shut them up, free us from having to hear them scream out in pain over the violence we've inflicted on them!!!
Which also is quite interesting, is to watch some of these perfect parents go even further, not settling for having the rude, selfish, and ungrateful brat silenced, but additionally, in both hugging themselves, and fishing for the sympathy of people with just a minimum of insight into the human psyche, washing their hands of this dirty job of silencing the brat, and accusing psychiatry of being violent. These are the parents who complain about "misdiagnoses", side effects, lack of "treatment" efficacy, lack of services, and so on, and so on.
Sorry people, you have nothing to complain about. You asked for their help, and you got it. At least, they do whatever is in their power to meet your expectations. There's no way how psychiatry, or any other institution, ever could silence your children, and at the same time make them the successes, you initially wanted them to be. Success in life presupposes a language of one's own, through which the self can express itself. No language, no success. You asked for it yourselves. You asked for your children to be turned into non-persons, into a "mental illness", a failure.
You have no right whatsoever to judge and condemn people like Joseph Biederman or the Schofields. What these people do is nothing else but what you asked them to do, respectively what you do yourselves. You have no right to blame the pharmaceutical companies for pushing drugs with debilitating, and partly fatal "side" effects, and covering these "side" effects up. You asked for your children to be debilitated, and rendered lifeless. That you asked for this to happen in a metaphorical way, debilitating and killing your childrens' protesting self, doesn't make a difference. And you also asked for the cover-up. Since no perfect parent would ask for their child to be denied a self.
Psychiatry didn't establish itself, out of the blue. Just like your children didn't become "mentally ill" out of the blue. You asked for psychiatry to be established, in exactly the way it appears today, just like your behavior had your children react to it, and become "mentally ill".
Lastly, there's the returning "walk a mile in my shoes!"-thing. Well, I have. I've been about just as unconscious, unaware, and irresponsible, as these perfect parents are, or choose to be. Because, as mentioned before, the moment you know more than one side of the story, you're not innocent anymore. You stand with a choice, and with the entire responsibility for whatever choice you decide to make. And no, you don't even need to hear another side of the story from some critical professional or survivors, or whoever. You just need to listen to your children's side of the story. You just need to set yourself aside for once, and really listen to them. Not to whatever comes out of their mouth after they were "brought back" to seeing the world through your eyes, while they're drugged up over their own eyeballs, but while they're the most themselves, in "psychosis". You just have to try and walk a mile in your children's shoes.
Apart from all this, I can only wonder why someone, who thinks psych drugs, especially neuroleptics, are not designed for someone like her daughter, read between the lines: while they sure as hell are designed for the "real loonies", those not "misdiagnosed" -- and the concept of "misdiagnosis" always implies that there would be such a thing as correct diagnosis -- kept visiting and commenting on a blog authored by such a "real loony", playing up to this "real loony", who, into the bargain, isn't on any drugs, and, what more is, is a pronounced opponent to psych drugs and labels, and the institution of psychiatry as such. I can only wonder why someone who obviously firmly believes in biologically based brain diseases, at the same time, and repeatedly, joins in whenever there's a call for Soteria Houses. Soteria wasn't created to treat biologically based brain diseases. It was created out of the belief that the alleged biologically based brain diseases indeed were personal, existential crises. -- And the outcomes Soteria produced confirmed this belief to be true, btw. -- So, what's the big idea behind this sailing under false colors, behind this hypocrisy? Why not simply stand by one's convictions? Looking for sympathy? Seeking absolution for one's discriminatory us-and-them-thinking, even from the "real loonies" themselves? I have to disappoint you, X. No sympathy nor absolution for violence available here.
_______________
Since somebody pointed out to me that, especially for people who haven't been following X's blog and/or her comments, here or elsewhere, for some time, it might look like I condemn X on the basis of one single remark about psych drugs on her blog: No, I don't. This is what I wrote in reply to this somebody, and I hope, it contributes to a better understanding of what I react to. -- Also I decided to anonymize. As the above mentioned somebody also points out to me, X is by far not the only one to engage in this kind of behavior, so, it's probably a little unfair to mention only her by name:
X has puzzled me for the entire about 2 years I've been following her blog. Lots of critical comments, asking for Soteria Houses, when everybody else was, slamming the Schofields, when everybody else did, or Joseph Biederman, when everybody else did, criticizing one or the other pharmaceutical company, when everybody else did, etc. etc. (and "everybody else" of course means a certain clique in the blogosphere). Still, at the same time there also always were these small inconsistencies. "Misdiagnosis", over and over again, and as if there was such a thing as a correct diagnosis, mentioning "psychosis" and "schizophrenia" as if they were valid labels, just not for her daughter, and also that over and over again. Not just once. But she also successfully avoided to ever take a clear stand, whether she does believe in the labels, in the drugs, in biopsychiatry, or not. So, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. And, frankly, I didn't believe my own eyes when I read her comments at "Lola's story", that quite clearly, and clearer than ever, state that she does believe in the righteousness of for instance a "bipolar"-label for, and the drugging for it of, kids. I mean, read the comments at Fid's blog. Lola writes about 6-year-olds who get labelled and drugged, and are helped by it, and no objection from X. She agrees. Lola's her friend, she admires Lola, Lola's right when she says, kids are helped by psychiatry, its labels, its drugs. I can only conclude that this does not add up with slamming the Schofields for having their 6-year-old daughter labelled and drugged. Not at all. She did it, because everybody else did it. The same applies to her slamming Biederman on her blog. One minute she condemns the man, also joins in whenever people voice ethical concerns about the labelling and drugging of children, the next she agrees that "bipolar" in kids is real. I ask her, at Fid's blog, if this really is what she believes. Yes, it is.
One thing is that I, under these circumstances, couldn't disagree more with her. And I think, I myself don't make a secret of my points of view on my blog. It's pretty clear where I stand. [So, it should have been clear to X, too.] Another is that I a) really don't understand why on earth she doesn't simply say so, when she disagrees, but keeps giving the impression that she would agree with people, when obviously she doesn't, and b) can't do with hypocrites. I actually have more sympathy with someone like Lola than with X. Lola never came to my blog, or made a comment elsewhere, pretending to agree when in truth she didn't.
Additionally, I want to emphasize -- if anybody is in doubt -- that a disagreeing opinion alone, brought forward in a factual manner, has my full respect. What I have no respect for whatsoever is hypocrisy.
Showing posts with label NAMI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NAMI. Show all posts
Saturday, 18 September 2010
Monday, 13 September 2010
The saddest thing
Reading "Lola's story", in fact more like her daughter's story, on Bob Fiddaman's blog yesterday really saddened me.
I came to think of the comment by "CJ" on the NYT-piece "Child's Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young", quoted by Rossa Forbes in her critique on the piece:
"It appears today's parents don't want to take time to examine themselves, their lifestyles, their parenting skills (or lack thereof) to see what might be affecting their child/ren. In addition, they might look to the schools, who have in many instances effectively taken away all outlets for normal childhood rambunctiousness by eliminating recess and phys ed, and requiring these little ones stay at their desks most of the day.
As for parents and physicians 'drugging' infants and preschoolers, well, as they say, you can't cure dumb.
As a nation, we are doing our youngsters a great disservice, substituting drugs for parenting, and placing the blame on others. Parents, take control. Do this by first taking control of yourselves."
Control, or responsibility. It hurts to face one's own inadequacies, mistakes, and dysfunctionality as a parent reflected in one's child reactions to them. And the more extreme the child's reactions, the more it hurts, because the more extreme the dysfunctionality they reflect. So, no doubt that it is a lot more comfortable to believe the misery isn't one's own responsibility, that you're not responsible for neither your own nor your "loved one's" pain. That it is all caused by fate, faulty genes, an imbalanced brain chemistry, nothing you could have done or can do anything about.
Related to this is the belief that the people who hold fate, faulty genes, and an imbalanced brain chemistry responsible are "just misguided", as a friend of mine keeps on telling me whenever I mention this dirty word: responsibility. And I mention it a lot, as the reader of this blog might have noticed. "Have compassion. It is no one's fault. They're just misguided." No one's fault. As in "it's a brain disease, bad genes, it's no one's fault". Or "no one's responsibility".
I recently complained to a friend about somebody's behavior really annoying me, draining me of energy. Like you'd complain to a shrink about your brain diseased child's behavior ruining your delusion of being the perfect parent. "You know," my friend said, "it's actually not that this person is annoying you, draining you of energy. You let her annoy you, and drain you of energy." Touché. Just as people, unless they are completely innocent, and don't know but one single version of a story, aren't misguided, but let themselves be misguided. With pleasure. For their own convenience.
This I wrote in a comment on another post at Rossa's blog:
"Everybody makes mistakes. Many people don't have the guts to admit their mistakes, to neither others, nor, and even less, to themselves. So they blame the suffering their mistakes causes not least themselves on others: "mental illness", and miss out on the opportunity to create transformation and growth for both themselves and their 'loved ones'. "
That's the price you have to pay for running from responsibility. You lose freedom. Also that from suffering. It's like peeing your pants, in the sense the Danes use the expression: at first, it feels nice and warm, but after a short while it gets really, really cold. But, no, you can't cure dumb. And the saddest thing is, when children have to pay for their parents' dumbness.
I came to think of the comment by "CJ" on the NYT-piece "Child's Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young", quoted by Rossa Forbes in her critique on the piece:
"It appears today's parents don't want to take time to examine themselves, their lifestyles, their parenting skills (or lack thereof) to see what might be affecting their child/ren. In addition, they might look to the schools, who have in many instances effectively taken away all outlets for normal childhood rambunctiousness by eliminating recess and phys ed, and requiring these little ones stay at their desks most of the day.
As for parents and physicians 'drugging' infants and preschoolers, well, as they say, you can't cure dumb.
As a nation, we are doing our youngsters a great disservice, substituting drugs for parenting, and placing the blame on others. Parents, take control. Do this by first taking control of yourselves."
Control, or responsibility. It hurts to face one's own inadequacies, mistakes, and dysfunctionality as a parent reflected in one's child reactions to them. And the more extreme the child's reactions, the more it hurts, because the more extreme the dysfunctionality they reflect. So, no doubt that it is a lot more comfortable to believe the misery isn't one's own responsibility, that you're not responsible for neither your own nor your "loved one's" pain. That it is all caused by fate, faulty genes, an imbalanced brain chemistry, nothing you could have done or can do anything about.
Related to this is the belief that the people who hold fate, faulty genes, and an imbalanced brain chemistry responsible are "just misguided", as a friend of mine keeps on telling me whenever I mention this dirty word: responsibility. And I mention it a lot, as the reader of this blog might have noticed. "Have compassion. It is no one's fault. They're just misguided." No one's fault. As in "it's a brain disease, bad genes, it's no one's fault". Or "no one's responsibility".
I recently complained to a friend about somebody's behavior really annoying me, draining me of energy. Like you'd complain to a shrink about your brain diseased child's behavior ruining your delusion of being the perfect parent. "You know," my friend said, "it's actually not that this person is annoying you, draining you of energy. You let her annoy you, and drain you of energy." Touché. Just as people, unless they are completely innocent, and don't know but one single version of a story, aren't misguided, but let themselves be misguided. With pleasure. For their own convenience.
This I wrote in a comment on another post at Rossa's blog:
"Everybody makes mistakes. Many people don't have the guts to admit their mistakes, to neither others, nor, and even less, to themselves. So they blame the suffering their mistakes causes not least themselves on others: "mental illness", and miss out on the opportunity to create transformation and growth for both themselves and their 'loved ones'. "
That's the price you have to pay for running from responsibility. You lose freedom. Also that from suffering. It's like peeing your pants, in the sense the Danes use the expression: at first, it feels nice and warm, but after a short while it gets really, really cold. But, no, you can't cure dumb. And the saddest thing is, when children have to pay for their parents' dumbness.
Saturday, 10 April 2010
The OPUS Trials - comparing drug "treatment" to drug "treatment"
Here you can find an overview in English over the research I referred to in both yesterday's post and this one from March 16.
While you scroll down to the "Funding" section at the bottom - and I'll get back to why you might want to have a look at this section -, don't be fooled by the charts. It's the figures that count, not the bars or lines. And the figures tell us that OPUS indeed works significantly better than "treatment" as usual. Well, at least in regard to "treatment adherence", "compliance" that is, and in regard to indoctrinating parents/family - which, on its part, certainly contributes to the higher "treatment adherence" achieved in an OPUS-setting compared to "treatment" as usual. Otherwise, thus also in regard to outcomes, differences are rather insignificant.
As I suspected in my previous post, the research was only and solely designed to compare OPUS to "treatment" as usual, and thus did not follow up on people who decided to take another, potentially more promising, route to recovery, than OPUS or "treatment" as usual. While these people seem to make up a considerable amount in both groups. Almost half of the initial participants in the study did not respond to the five-year-follow-up interview. Some of them certainly because they've become wiser than to remain uncritically cheerful about the received "treatment" in the meantime.
Of course, it is very nice that the dosage of neuroleptics in an OPUS setting, presumably thanks to the massive indoctrination and rat training offered by OPUS, is kept about 20% lower than in a "treatment" as usual setting. Nevertheless, this still is no reason to get over-the-top enthusiastic about OPUS as people in "treatment" as usual settings often are senselessly overdrugged, meaning that people in OPUS settings are just a little less overdrugged, and, well, as there still is a looong way from a little less overdrugged to the barely drugged at all of alternatives like Soteria or Open Dialog.
Did you scroll down to the "Funding" section? If so, you'll maybe remember that I referred to Merete Nordentoft as the Danish Fuller Torrey. Yup, also The Stanley Medical Research Institute funded this research project. Is it any wonder that drug-free, non-medical alternatives were of no interest to the researchers, and that learning to live with a chronic illness through OPUS is hailed to be as good as it can get?...
Best buddies
(How I wish I had Photoshop!)
While you scroll down to the "Funding" section at the bottom - and I'll get back to why you might want to have a look at this section -, don't be fooled by the charts. It's the figures that count, not the bars or lines. And the figures tell us that OPUS indeed works significantly better than "treatment" as usual. Well, at least in regard to "treatment adherence", "compliance" that is, and in regard to indoctrinating parents/family - which, on its part, certainly contributes to the higher "treatment adherence" achieved in an OPUS-setting compared to "treatment" as usual. Otherwise, thus also in regard to outcomes, differences are rather insignificant.
As I suspected in my previous post, the research was only and solely designed to compare OPUS to "treatment" as usual, and thus did not follow up on people who decided to take another, potentially more promising, route to recovery, than OPUS or "treatment" as usual. While these people seem to make up a considerable amount in both groups. Almost half of the initial participants in the study did not respond to the five-year-follow-up interview. Some of them certainly because they've become wiser than to remain uncritically cheerful about the received "treatment" in the meantime.
Of course, it is very nice that the dosage of neuroleptics in an OPUS setting, presumably thanks to the massive indoctrination and rat training offered by OPUS, is kept about 20% lower than in a "treatment" as usual setting. Nevertheless, this still is no reason to get over-the-top enthusiastic about OPUS as people in "treatment" as usual settings often are senselessly overdrugged, meaning that people in OPUS settings are just a little less overdrugged, and, well, as there still is a looong way from a little less overdrugged to the barely drugged at all of alternatives like Soteria or Open Dialog.
Did you scroll down to the "Funding" section? If so, you'll maybe remember that I referred to Merete Nordentoft as the Danish Fuller Torrey. Yup, also The Stanley Medical Research Institute funded this research project. Is it any wonder that drug-free, non-medical alternatives were of no interest to the researchers, and that learning to live with a chronic illness through OPUS is hailed to be as good as it can get?...
Best buddies
(How I wish I had Photoshop!)
Friday, 9 April 2010
Why Merete Nordentoft's recent research showing "schizophrenics" to do better without drugs won't change a thing about treatment
Well, in short, because the 19% of study participants reported to be "fully recovered" aren't really fully recovered, but rehabilitated.
A follow-up article in the Danish journal Dagens Medicin portrays Mai Pedersen, a 30-year-old with a high school exam (it's the smart ones who do best, remember?), and with some of the most loving and supportive parents imaginable (it's the ones with a truly idyllic family background who do best, remember?), who was labelled "schizophrenic" seven years ago, put into OPUS (Merete Nordentoft's early intervention program) and on drugs, of course, both neuroleptics and "anti-depressants", and who decided to go off the drugs some time ago. The latter actually, and this is the really disturbing part as the article's title, which translates into "Went off medication - and didn't ask for permission before afterwards", indicates, without asking permission from her shrink. Imagine! She didn't ask her shrink before tapering off the drugs!! How incredibly cheeky!*)
Although Mai Pedersen doesn't take any drugs today, she is "symptom-free". So, according to the article, Mai Pedersen is "fully recovered". But is she really? Mai Pedersen has an enemy. The enemy is stress. And it still has that much power over her as to have her weigh everything she does in regard to how the enemy "stress" probably will react to it. Mai Pedersen has, certainly thanks to CBT-rat training (and yes, it may well make training progress come more swiftly and be more lasting if the rat has some brains), and thanks to her wonderfully supportive parents (yes, relatives can play a decisive role when it comes to "insight" and "compliance", the better they manage to hide their own dysfunctionality behind a facade of pure family idyl, the more of a "support" - for biopsychiatric "treatment" - they will be) learned to live as a victim of "schizophrenia", a slave of a chronic brain disease. She has accepted that nothing ever will come as easy to her as it does to her "normal" friends and acquaintances, that she will have to make sacrifices to the "illness" for the rest of her life, that the "illness" dictates what she can and can't do, and that she maybe even will end up in hospital again, and again, and again... - And btw, take a look at the photograph at the top of the article, and note how beautifully it communicates the heavy burden of suffering from "schizophrenia".
Mai Pedersen succeeded in becoming a licensed psychomotrician, and is a member of the OPUS-panel, which "tries to spread information in the community about the many success stories that show also patients with schizophrenia to be able to live rewarding lives." A real success story. Or, as Mai Pedersen puts it herself, "a lousy Danielle Steele novel". Indeed!
Well well, here it is that I ask, how about a panel to try and spread some information in the community about the many real success stories that show labelled people to be able to overcome their crisis, and live a life without "schizophrenia", without constantly having to be on their guard against an enemy called "stress", without massive limitations and sacrifices, and without having the spectre of returning "psychosis" and re-hospitalization hanging over their heads?? How about a panel to try and spread some information in the community about real recovery, real freedom, to be possible??
But alas, such a panel would probably not consist of a bunch of happy and grateful OPUS-patients (and Mai Pedersen is still a patient today, she still sees her shrink on a regular basis, apropos of "fully recovered"...), a bunch of Elyn Sakses, who identify as being "mentally ill", as suffering from a chronic brain disease by the name of "schizophrenia". So, it is rather unlikely that we will see such a panel initiated by the establishment anytime in the foreseeable future. Just as a paradigm shift in the definition and treatment of crisis is unlikely to happen as long as the Mai Pedersens and Elyn Sakses of this world aren't only made slaves of an alleged illness, but also, and even more important, of a system, that (ab-)uses them big time to sell its hopeless messages and harmful "treatment" to the community.
To get back to Merete Nordentoft's research, the rate of 19% "fully recovered" participants is obviously an error, resulting from an erroneous concept of "full recovery". The true figure probably is closer to 0%, as the study apparently was not designed to include participants, who dropped out of "treatment", but seems to exclusively have concentrated on individuals, who stayed in contact with the mh system throughout the entire five years during which they were monitored. If this is the case, and I have a very strong hunch that it is, not least because the article in Dagens Medicin otherwise probably would have portrayed someone else instead of Mai Pedersen, real full recovery of course is excluded in advance from figuring in the results as a possible outcome. I suppose, this is what is called "biased" then.
A high school exam, the ability to think clearly, and a supportive network, family or other, are without doubt useful in the recovery process. But there is one more important thing , maybe the most important of them all, in terms of recovery that isn't mentioned anywhere in context with Merete Nordentoft's research, and that thing is what Al Siebert termed "resilience". The ability to "resile", or resist (without breaking your neck over it), for instance the massive indoctrination labelled people usually face in the mh system. The ability to preserve one's integrity in an environment designed to strip you entirely of it. Mai Pedersen had the high school exam, but unfortunately she didn't have the amount of resilience necessary to achieve real full recovery, and I also wonder if she would have had her family's support in case she had had the necessary amount of resilience, and had chosen to opt for freedom, instead of for slavery.
_______________
*) The title of the article caused some indignation among consumers/survivors, and gave rise to an interesting discussion at a Danish mainstream forum. - Of course I simply had to set the cat among the pigeons... :D - I will write about my thoughts on the matter in a future post here.
A follow-up article in the Danish journal Dagens Medicin portrays Mai Pedersen, a 30-year-old with a high school exam (it's the smart ones who do best, remember?), and with some of the most loving and supportive parents imaginable (it's the ones with a truly idyllic family background who do best, remember?), who was labelled "schizophrenic" seven years ago, put into OPUS (Merete Nordentoft's early intervention program) and on drugs, of course, both neuroleptics and "anti-depressants", and who decided to go off the drugs some time ago. The latter actually, and this is the really disturbing part as the article's title, which translates into "Went off medication - and didn't ask for permission before afterwards", indicates, without asking permission from her shrink. Imagine! She didn't ask her shrink before tapering off the drugs!! How incredibly cheeky!*)
Although Mai Pedersen doesn't take any drugs today, she is "symptom-free". So, according to the article, Mai Pedersen is "fully recovered". But is she really? Mai Pedersen has an enemy. The enemy is stress. And it still has that much power over her as to have her weigh everything she does in regard to how the enemy "stress" probably will react to it. Mai Pedersen has, certainly thanks to CBT-rat training (and yes, it may well make training progress come more swiftly and be more lasting if the rat has some brains), and thanks to her wonderfully supportive parents (yes, relatives can play a decisive role when it comes to "insight" and "compliance", the better they manage to hide their own dysfunctionality behind a facade of pure family idyl, the more of a "support" - for biopsychiatric "treatment" - they will be) learned to live as a victim of "schizophrenia", a slave of a chronic brain disease. She has accepted that nothing ever will come as easy to her as it does to her "normal" friends and acquaintances, that she will have to make sacrifices to the "illness" for the rest of her life, that the "illness" dictates what she can and can't do, and that she maybe even will end up in hospital again, and again, and again... - And btw, take a look at the photograph at the top of the article, and note how beautifully it communicates the heavy burden of suffering from "schizophrenia".
Mai Pedersen succeeded in becoming a licensed psychomotrician, and is a member of the OPUS-panel, which "tries to spread information in the community about the many success stories that show also patients with schizophrenia to be able to live rewarding lives." A real success story. Or, as Mai Pedersen puts it herself, "a lousy Danielle Steele novel". Indeed!
Well well, here it is that I ask, how about a panel to try and spread some information in the community about the many real success stories that show labelled people to be able to overcome their crisis, and live a life without "schizophrenia", without constantly having to be on their guard against an enemy called "stress", without massive limitations and sacrifices, and without having the spectre of returning "psychosis" and re-hospitalization hanging over their heads?? How about a panel to try and spread some information in the community about real recovery, real freedom, to be possible??
But alas, such a panel would probably not consist of a bunch of happy and grateful OPUS-patients (and Mai Pedersen is still a patient today, she still sees her shrink on a regular basis, apropos of "fully recovered"...), a bunch of Elyn Sakses, who identify as being "mentally ill", as suffering from a chronic brain disease by the name of "schizophrenia". So, it is rather unlikely that we will see such a panel initiated by the establishment anytime in the foreseeable future. Just as a paradigm shift in the definition and treatment of crisis is unlikely to happen as long as the Mai Pedersens and Elyn Sakses of this world aren't only made slaves of an alleged illness, but also, and even more important, of a system, that (ab-)uses them big time to sell its hopeless messages and harmful "treatment" to the community.
To get back to Merete Nordentoft's research, the rate of 19% "fully recovered" participants is obviously an error, resulting from an erroneous concept of "full recovery". The true figure probably is closer to 0%, as the study apparently was not designed to include participants, who dropped out of "treatment", but seems to exclusively have concentrated on individuals, who stayed in contact with the mh system throughout the entire five years during which they were monitored. If this is the case, and I have a very strong hunch that it is, not least because the article in Dagens Medicin otherwise probably would have portrayed someone else instead of Mai Pedersen, real full recovery of course is excluded in advance from figuring in the results as a possible outcome. I suppose, this is what is called "biased" then.
A high school exam, the ability to think clearly, and a supportive network, family or other, are without doubt useful in the recovery process. But there is one more important thing , maybe the most important of them all, in terms of recovery that isn't mentioned anywhere in context with Merete Nordentoft's research, and that thing is what Al Siebert termed "resilience". The ability to "resile", or resist (without breaking your neck over it), for instance the massive indoctrination labelled people usually face in the mh system. The ability to preserve one's integrity in an environment designed to strip you entirely of it. Mai Pedersen had the high school exam, but unfortunately she didn't have the amount of resilience necessary to achieve real full recovery, and I also wonder if she would have had her family's support in case she had had the necessary amount of resilience, and had chosen to opt for freedom, instead of for slavery.
_______________
*) The title of the article caused some indignation among consumers/survivors, and gave rise to an interesting discussion at a Danish mainstream forum. - Of course I simply had to set the cat among the pigeons... :D - I will write about my thoughts on the matter in a future post here.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Involuntary "treatment" to reduce the use of involuntary "treatment"
It's enough to drive you to despair, but nevertheless I was laughing my ass off when I read this article yesterday.
So-called "assisted outpatient treatment", make that involuntary or forced outpatient "treatment", has been discussed a lot again in Denmark lately. Both shrinks and relatives think that it is simply too bad that the current Danish legislation doesn't allow for forced "treatment" after someone is released from a psych prison, which according to the article results in some severely ill people throwing out their, as the article has it, "necessary" dope again and again at the first occasion, and becoming "psychotic" once again.
The article quotes the former Danish Health Minister, Jakob Axel Nielsen, who was preparing a bill that, if followed up by his successor, Bertel Haarder, and passed by the Folketinget, will come into force in October this year, allowing for involuntary outpatient "treatment" for people who've been re-incarcerated three times, and at least one of these times because they stopped taking their "medication":
"I simply hope that involuntary outpatient treatment will reduce the use of involuntary treatment as far as these patients are concerned."
With such an outstanding ability to reason logically, it is no wonder that politicians are so easily deceived by the shrinks' and NAMI-relatives' "logic".
So-called "assisted outpatient treatment", make that involuntary or forced outpatient "treatment", has been discussed a lot again in Denmark lately. Both shrinks and relatives think that it is simply too bad that the current Danish legislation doesn't allow for forced "treatment" after someone is released from a psych prison, which according to the article results in some severely ill people throwing out their, as the article has it, "necessary" dope again and again at the first occasion, and becoming "psychotic" once again.
The article quotes the former Danish Health Minister, Jakob Axel Nielsen, who was preparing a bill that, if followed up by his successor, Bertel Haarder, and passed by the Folketinget, will come into force in October this year, allowing for involuntary outpatient "treatment" for people who've been re-incarcerated three times, and at least one of these times because they stopped taking their "medication":
"I simply hope that involuntary outpatient treatment will reduce the use of involuntary treatment as far as these patients are concerned."
With such an outstanding ability to reason logically, it is no wonder that politicians are so easily deceived by the shrinks' and NAMI-relatives' "logic".
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Trauma Survivor
Description at YouTube:
"Elemental Ireland
Those termed "psychiatric patients" are in fact trauma survivors. Many who find themselves caught in the net of bio-psychiatry are responding to the abnormal circumstances of a traumatic childhood; the hated child, the abandoned child, the neglected child, the exploited child, the defeated child and the silenced child, to name a few.
Exploring 'The Roots of Violence' by Alice Miller. This video contains quotes by Alice Miller and by Elemental Ireland.
'For some years now, there has been proof that the devastating effects of the traumatization of children take their inevitable toll on society - a fact that we are still forbidden to recognise (a fact that is commonly denied). This knowledge concerns every single one of us and - if disseminated widely enough - should lead to fundamental changes in society; above all, to a halt in the blind escalation of violence'. Alice Miller
Having recently discovered Alice Miller, as a parent I found her work a welcome challenge. She has made me think deeply both about the way I parent and society's attitudes to children. It is a matter of urgency for me to heal my own wounded inner-child, so I can parent my children in the best possible way. She has tapped into great truths that I knew deep down but was afraid to voice to myself and in public. A good website exploring Alice Miller's work is Daniel Mackler's iraresoul. Daniel has made an excellent film called 'Take These Broken Wings' about recovery from (so-called) schizophrenia without medication.
Many trauma survivors are terrified and find it difficult to trust. They struggle with repressed rage and anger. Many are further punished for being trauma survivors by coercion and forced 'treatment'. They are further battered and broken by bio-psychiatry.
In most cases, the trauma survivor is silenced three times; firstly by their families, then by society and then by bio-psychiatry.
Wouldn't this make you angry?"
Some time ago, I lent Derrick Jensen's A Language Older Than Words to a friend. Earlier this week, I got it back: "I couldn't read past the first pages. Too painful to read about all this violence and abuse." Yeah. It certainly is a lot less painful to close your eyes to reality. It just won't change anything.
Friday, 30 October 2009
Some thoughts about A Beautiful Mind and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Usually, I'm not a big fan of filmatizations. Especially when I've read the book before I watch the movie, and when the book's emphasis is about more complex psychological contexts watching the movie often has been a bit of a comedown. An example of such a, in my opinion, somewhat failed adaption is A Beautiful Mind with its rather exaggerated and twisted presentation of "hallucinations", meant to help the audience understand the phenomenon, but actually more fit for obtaining the very opposite effect. And indeed, some stylistic faux pas, one would think directors like Bergman and Tarkovsky for instance had taught the cinema to avoid a long time ago. But, well, on the one hand we have Bergman's and Tarkovsky's feel for subtle nuances, on the other Hollywood's preference for broader strokes of the brush. Like comparing apples and oranges.Another thing that can give me a kind of comedown experience is when the movie consciously twists the text's "message", exploiting the book's, author's or protagonist's popularity in order to get its own "message" out. This too, A Beautiful Mind is an outstanding example to illustrate, abusing John Nash's celebrity status, letting his character state, that he takes the "newer medications", while we all know that the real John Nash didn't take neuroleptics other than when he was forced to, like during hospitalizations, and never after 1970.
The producers excused their distorting the historical facts, and said they didn't want people to toss out their drugs. In the meantime, the movie doesn't at any point directly state that John Nash didn't take drugs over longer periods. Thus there should be no need to mention the matter at all. Unless the idea was to exploit John Nash's popularity for the benefit of the psych drug industry. On the contrary, I'd say. Given the fact, that Nash did recover, while recovery on neuroleptics virtually never occurs, the truth should have been mentioned.
So, all in all it was with reservations that I ventured into watching the filmatization of Joanne Greenberg's novel I Never Promised You a Rose Garden the other day.Except for in a single sequence, the visualization of Deborah's "hallucinations" is created in a more subtle way than John Nash's in A Beautiful Mind, and thus more endurable and credible. Never mind that it left me with vague associations to Timothy Leary and Woodstock, just as the decorations, costumes and requisits represent a somewhat strange blend of the 1950ies and the late 1970ies.
Although the movie's last sequences seem a bit rash - and it has to be considered that the standard length for movies, that rarely was exceeded, was 90 minutes back in 1977, the movie's production year - and, compared to the novel, a little superficially happy-ending-like, the movie manages to avoid the all too broad strokes of the brush, and, and this is really an achievement the subject taken into account, it avoids to descend into the melodramatic.
Based on a novel as complex as Joanne Greenberg's, a filmatization can hardly be anything but fragmentary. Nevertheless, the movie succeeds to make the best of its 96 almost-standard minutes, both because it focusses on some of the most essential themes of the novel, and not least because of the actors' brilliant performance (Kathleen Quinlan, Bibi Andersson - oh well, a Bergman-trained actress...), and I was positively surprised to see the novel's basic "message" unchanged.
A comment at YouTube says what the novel teaches us is "to have COMPASSION with the mentally ill". I replied: "What both the book and the movie teach us is that so-called "mental illness" is a choice (out of necessity though). Not a chronic brain disease. And they both teach us that we should make it possible for people to choose freedom, like Frieda Fromm-Reichmann made it possible for Joanne Greenberg. Instead of indefinitely locking them up in helplessness and dependency with toxic chemicals and hopeless messages about defective genes and chronic brain disorders."
I was surprised, but I'd also forgotten all about the movie's production year, 1977, that is about the fact that the movie was shot at a time in history when psych drugs didn't yet play the everything else overshadowing role they do play today, and when psychological and psycho-social causes still were considered. Interesting and refreshing in this context is that the dialogue doesn't get stuck in diagnoses and other crudenesses. Although "psychotic" appears from time to time, "schizophrenia" for instance isn't mentioned one single time throughout the entire movie. Probably also this a 1977-phenomenon.
Although it can by no means replace reading the novel itself, a filmatization of Joanne Greenberg's autobiographic novel that is well worth watching.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden at YouTube.
Monday, 12 October 2009
"Psykisk sårbar" - "Mentally vulnerable". The new, politically correct term in Denmark
There's a new trend emerging here in Denmark. The politically correct term for people in emotional distress is no longer "mentally ill" (psykisk syg) or "insane" (sindssyg - yup, both the "experts" and the media have a preference for this truly value neutral term, especially when it comes to "the schizophrenics"), it is "mentally vulnerable". Beautiful, huh? Like renaming the house slave as housekeeper, or lobotomy as psycho-surgery... Everybody of course just loooves this new term. It sounds so empathetic, so loving and caring, doesn't it?
One of those who are at the leading edge concerning this linguistic revolution is former Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, who recently launched one more amazing website (check out the vid - and cry; no need to speak Danish btw, his facial expression says it all) for, yeah, "mentally vulnerable" people and their relatives.
Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, whose daughter suffered from "depression", and eventually felt so respectfully listened to, also by her father, that she couldn't bear it anymore - certainly because of the "illness" - and ended her life, now wants to compensate for this tragic loss by publicly pleading the "mentally vulnerables' " cause. As we all know, these, uhm, people don't really have a voice of their own (that's probably why Poul Nyrup didn't hear the least, although his daughter screamed and shouted right into his ears), so they need every NAMI-parent available to speak for them.
"Schizophrenia is a persistent and serious mental illness," it reads on Poul Nyrup's brand new website. Among a whole bunch of other lies. It seems, Poul Nyrup is in dire need of a Truth Injection. Maybe I'll take pity on him and e-mail him one, one of these days. Being no more "mentally vulnerable" than anybody else, and thus able to speak for myself. But frankly I fear, Poul Nyrup's condition is rather persistent and serious, with treatment-resistant denial being one of the core symptoms.
One of those who are at the leading edge concerning this linguistic revolution is former Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, who recently launched one more amazing website (check out the vid - and cry; no need to speak Danish btw, his facial expression says it all) for, yeah, "mentally vulnerable" people and their relatives.
Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, whose daughter suffered from "depression", and eventually felt so respectfully listened to, also by her father, that she couldn't bear it anymore - certainly because of the "illness" - and ended her life, now wants to compensate for this tragic loss by publicly pleading the "mentally vulnerables' " cause. As we all know, these, uhm, people don't really have a voice of their own (that's probably why Poul Nyrup didn't hear the least, although his daughter screamed and shouted right into his ears), so they need every NAMI-parent available to speak for them.
"Schizophrenia is a persistent and serious mental illness," it reads on Poul Nyrup's brand new website. Among a whole bunch of other lies. It seems, Poul Nyrup is in dire need of a Truth Injection. Maybe I'll take pity on him and e-mail him one, one of these days. Being no more "mentally vulnerable" than anybody else, and thus able to speak for myself. But frankly I fear, Poul Nyrup's condition is rather persistent and serious, with treatment-resistant denial being one of the core symptoms.
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
An unwanted child
First of all, go to Stan's blog, and read the e-mail exchange between him and the LA-Times reporter Shari Roan, who chooses to defend what in my opinion is a crystal-clear case of severe child abuse.
Now, while many in the meantime seem to have noticed that Jani's father Michael Schofield openly admits to have both beaten her up, starved her and subjected her to numerous other kinds of what without doubt must be termed severe child abuse, there's something, no one yet has explicitly mentioned, as far as I can see.
In this blog post Jani's father talks about the basic needs of infants:
"Simply having to feed another person on schedule is a chore. After years of only having to take care of yourself, you have to take care of another. Feed them. Clean them. Wipe them. Feed them again. Bathe them. Again with the feeding.
These simple tasks are difficult enough because we are not used to it. Society trains us to take care of ourselves, not another human being.
Since the focus of baby care classes is basic infant care, it lulls you into a sense of believing that infants will only complain if their basic needs aren't met. You believe all you have to do is feed them, clean them, keep them warm, and maybe hold them a little bit.
That's bullshit.
It turns out that "basic" human needs are not so basic, nor are they the same for every infant. The baby care classes prepare you to feed the baby and change a diaper, not how to meet your child's emotional and psychological needs. It is assumed that infants do not have such complex needs. This is just as much crap as the stuff in the diapers. Humans are born complex, psychological creatures, and can have needs that far outstrip basic needs."
Read between the lines: "No one told us, that human beings need love - so we assumed, we didn't need to love Jani as long as we changed her diapers and fed her."
Narcissists are people who don't know what love is. They've never received it, thus they are unable to give it, if it is in regard to themselves or others. All they've ever experienced is need, being ab-/used by others to fulfil these others' needs. This is all they know about relationships: how to ab-/use others to fulfil their own needs. Narcissists are not able to love.
To start with, Jani was physically probably provided for in a satisfactory way. Although one may wonder even in regard to that, taken the "difficult enough", and Michael Schofield's somewhat wistful description of the good old days when he and his wife would spend days in bed, doing nothing, into account... However, it stands out quite clear to me, that Jani emotionally was left high and dry in a more or less complete vacuum, that she spent her life in an emotionally ice-cold environment from day one.
Schofield blames Maslow, says Maslow was wrong. Maslow wasn't wrong. Schofield chooses to misinterpret, in his own favor. Love is a "D-need" in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. And while one can argue if it is right to split up basic human needs into levels, like Maslow did, or if they should be grouped together at one single level, as some critics suggest, they are all deficiency needs, that, if not met, cause suffering.
Schofield also blames Jani, or the "illness", which is basically the same, says that the "illness" made her different, special, more needy than "normal" infants, who would be content, having their basic, physical needs fulfilled. Again, he is dead wrong. Any human being, infant or other, will inevitably suffer if they are deprived of love - or any other basic human need, physical or not, listed by Maslow as a D-need, for that sake.
This is what so-called "schizophrenia" is made of. It is the manifestation of the suffering, that is caused by being deprived of love, by being objectified, and ab-/used to fulfil others' needs. It is the manifestation of protest against that abuse.
Sometimes it is mentioned as a "symptom" of "schizophrenia", that "the schizophrenic" feels s/he's an unwanted child. It's not a symptom of a brain disease. It's the truth. Michael and Susan Schofield didn't want a child. They needed an object, a something, to act out their own trauma.
That this isn't recognized, that it even is blatantly denied, by Shari Roan for instance, but also and even more important by those, who should be the first to recognize it, the "experts", doesn't surprise me the least. It's only symptomatic of a thoroughly narcissistic culture.
_______________
P.S.: As for Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, if at all I'd split up the basic human needs, I'd place "love" at the very bottom of it. Human beings can handle a whole lot of suffering if only they are loved. If they are not, they will inevitably go to pieces, sooner or later, with or without other kinds of suffering. And no one who really loves their child, would ever put him/her through, what Jani has been put through by her parents, especially her father.
Now, while many in the meantime seem to have noticed that Jani's father Michael Schofield openly admits to have both beaten her up, starved her and subjected her to numerous other kinds of what without doubt must be termed severe child abuse, there's something, no one yet has explicitly mentioned, as far as I can see.
In this blog post Jani's father talks about the basic needs of infants:
"Simply having to feed another person on schedule is a chore. After years of only having to take care of yourself, you have to take care of another. Feed them. Clean them. Wipe them. Feed them again. Bathe them. Again with the feeding.
These simple tasks are difficult enough because we are not used to it. Society trains us to take care of ourselves, not another human being.
Since the focus of baby care classes is basic infant care, it lulls you into a sense of believing that infants will only complain if their basic needs aren't met. You believe all you have to do is feed them, clean them, keep them warm, and maybe hold them a little bit.
That's bullshit.
It turns out that "basic" human needs are not so basic, nor are they the same for every infant. The baby care classes prepare you to feed the baby and change a diaper, not how to meet your child's emotional and psychological needs. It is assumed that infants do not have such complex needs. This is just as much crap as the stuff in the diapers. Humans are born complex, psychological creatures, and can have needs that far outstrip basic needs."
Read between the lines: "No one told us, that human beings need love - so we assumed, we didn't need to love Jani as long as we changed her diapers and fed her."
Narcissists are people who don't know what love is. They've never received it, thus they are unable to give it, if it is in regard to themselves or others. All they've ever experienced is need, being ab-/used by others to fulfil these others' needs. This is all they know about relationships: how to ab-/use others to fulfil their own needs. Narcissists are not able to love.
To start with, Jani was physically probably provided for in a satisfactory way. Although one may wonder even in regard to that, taken the "difficult enough", and Michael Schofield's somewhat wistful description of the good old days when he and his wife would spend days in bed, doing nothing, into account... However, it stands out quite clear to me, that Jani emotionally was left high and dry in a more or less complete vacuum, that she spent her life in an emotionally ice-cold environment from day one.
Schofield blames Maslow, says Maslow was wrong. Maslow wasn't wrong. Schofield chooses to misinterpret, in his own favor. Love is a "D-need" in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. And while one can argue if it is right to split up basic human needs into levels, like Maslow did, or if they should be grouped together at one single level, as some critics suggest, they are all deficiency needs, that, if not met, cause suffering.
Schofield also blames Jani, or the "illness", which is basically the same, says that the "illness" made her different, special, more needy than "normal" infants, who would be content, having their basic, physical needs fulfilled. Again, he is dead wrong. Any human being, infant or other, will inevitably suffer if they are deprived of love - or any other basic human need, physical or not, listed by Maslow as a D-need, for that sake.
This is what so-called "schizophrenia" is made of. It is the manifestation of the suffering, that is caused by being deprived of love, by being objectified, and ab-/used to fulfil others' needs. It is the manifestation of protest against that abuse.
Sometimes it is mentioned as a "symptom" of "schizophrenia", that "the schizophrenic" feels s/he's an unwanted child. It's not a symptom of a brain disease. It's the truth. Michael and Susan Schofield didn't want a child. They needed an object, a something, to act out their own trauma.
That this isn't recognized, that it even is blatantly denied, by Shari Roan for instance, but also and even more important by those, who should be the first to recognize it, the "experts", doesn't surprise me the least. It's only symptomatic of a thoroughly narcissistic culture.
_______________
P.S.: As for Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, if at all I'd split up the basic human needs, I'd place "love" at the very bottom of it. Human beings can handle a whole lot of suffering if only they are loved. If they are not, they will inevitably go to pieces, sooner or later, with or without other kinds of suffering. And no one who really loves their child, would ever put him/her through, what Jani has been put through by her parents, especially her father.
Monday, 6 July 2009
Jani: "schizophrenic", or a victim of child abuse?!
I had a hunch, that some kind of abuse or neglect probably was involved, also in Jani's case. - And I want to emphasize, that my definition of "abuse" is a quite broad one, that is not restricted to parents battering or sexually abusing their kids. It may or may not be the parents, and it may or may not be physical abuse.
Now I just read the following, which I haven't been aware of, at Stephany's blog:
"It saddens me to say the least to read on the Jani's father's blog that the father talks about beating (hitting) , and starving Jani, taking away her toys, and ultimately drugging her spirit. (to break her) before she was placed on psychiatric medications this child suffered child abuse."
So, no, one doesn't even need to apply my own, broad, Derrick-Jensen-influenced definition of abuse to come to the conclusion, that Jani indeed is a victim of child abuse.
Read the whole post at Stephany's blog, here!
Now I just read the following, which I haven't been aware of, at Stephany's blog:
"It saddens me to say the least to read on the Jani's father's blog that the father talks about beating (hitting) , and starving Jani, taking away her toys, and ultimately drugging her spirit. (to break her) before she was placed on psychiatric medications this child suffered child abuse."
So, no, one doesn't even need to apply my own, broad, Derrick-Jensen-influenced definition of abuse to come to the conclusion, that Jani indeed is a victim of child abuse.
Read the whole post at Stephany's blog, here!
NAMI-pathos - the need to be special
To enjoy some real NAMI-pathos and -defensiveness, go here - to get an idea, what the whole thing is about, check out "Parents Cope With 6-Year-Old With Schizophrenia" at Philip Dawdy's blog - read the post, then read David Oaks' comment, Wednesday, July 1, 2009 - 04:34 PM, 9th comment from the top, and then Michael Schofield's reply to David, Wednesday, July 1, 2009 - 06:11 PM, 11th comment from the top.
Well, and then tell me, that these parents do anything else than feeling sorry - for themselves. Drowning in self-pity. And they actually thrive on their misery. So much, they forget everything about being polite (or just pathetic...), and indeed become rude and defensive, as soon as someone comes around, and mentions, in the most empathetic, friendly way, the possibility, that to be in the mh system might not be the right thing for their daughter, and that they maybe should have a deeper look at the matter: "Don't you dare to question the necessity of our suffering to continue indefinitely!!! We are special! Our misery is more miserable than anyone else's in the whole wide world! And we will fight for it! (Even if that costs Jani her life.)" Narcissists?...
Well, and then tell me, that these parents do anything else than feeling sorry - for themselves. Drowning in self-pity. And they actually thrive on their misery. So much, they forget everything about being polite (or just pathetic...), and indeed become rude and defensive, as soon as someone comes around, and mentions, in the most empathetic, friendly way, the possibility, that to be in the mh system might not be the right thing for their daughter, and that they maybe should have a deeper look at the matter: "Don't you dare to question the necessity of our suffering to continue indefinitely!!! We are special! Our misery is more miserable than anyone else's in the whole wide world! And we will fight for it! (Even if that costs Jani her life.)" Narcissists?...
Thursday, 2 July 2009
"Schizophrenia", or: blame the victim!
What really is utterly disturbing to me, is people who are disturbed by a six-year-old who is drugged into a stupor with huge doses of psych poisons, while they fail to acknowledge the assault it is on this six-year-old to be labelled with "schizophrenia" - a label that, like all psych labels, lacks any scientific proof of its validity - and thus fail to acknowledge, that it is the blame-the-victim-label, that justifies the silence-the-victim-drugging.
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Cry for Help - Being a teen is a mental illness
PBS has a documentary on it's site, Cry for Help. Teenage Mental Illness and Suicide, that represents one huge piece of propaganda for NAMI and screening programs like TeenScreen (check out "Recources: Hotlines and Web Sites for Parents") and STEPS (Screening, Treatment, and Education to Promote Strength).
Here are some quotes from the featured story of Stacy Hollingsworth, who today works for NAMI, NJ:
Question: Why did you hide it [her "depression" and suicidal thoughts] from your parents?
Stacy Hollingsworth: I didn't want to hurt them. I knew they would be the type of parents, who would feel they were somehow to blame for my illness. (...)
Q: Were you afraid at all they wouldn't understand?
S.H.: (...) If they did have a negative reaction to it somehow, it was something that I couldn't escape. They would be in my life the whole time.
(From "Stacy", 1. part)
Sharon Hollingworth, Stacy's mother: And then I thought, it was all over, this was the end of all those dreams a parent has for her child. She certainly wasn't going to have the life, that I had hoped and expected her...
(...)
She never really had a chance with us, because we never opened the dialogue. And I guess, she didn't want to disappoint us, or worry us. She was the perfect child.
(From "Stacy", 2. part)
Well well... But no, of course it weren't inhumane expectations to this "perfect child", or the "overachiever", or "All-Star-daughter", as the documentary also describes Stacy, that were causing her trouble at an age, where about everybody, as a quite natural part of their personal development, starts to question among other things society's norms and values of perfection and perfect achievement. Nope. It was a chemical imbalance in the brain, that, as it will seem to me, most if not all teenagers do suffer from. Just as a remarkable number of teenagers suffers from a biological brain disease, that's called "I'm coming from a broken home", "I get bullied", or something else along those lines.
Yes, indeed, the documentary mentions these things. Nevertheless, I got the impression, that being bullied, growing up with violence and abuse (if it is in the shape of parental expectations of perfection, or other) is caused by the victim's defective brain. NAMI's essential message: Depressed? Suicidal? Never ever blame your parents, or society! Blame your brain!
I wonder, why screen at all? Why not straightforward call being a teen a "mental illness", and NAMI-style drug up everybody above age, hm, let's see, 12? 10? or no, wait, it's "early intervention" isn't it? so, 8 maybe? who isn't yet on one or the other or several kinds of mindaltering drugs?
There are numerous options to comment on (and rate) this piece of propaganda at the site. Make use of them, if you feel up to facing tons of NAMI-parents' cheers. Right now, I myself don't.
Here are some quotes from the featured story of Stacy Hollingsworth, who today works for NAMI, NJ:
Question: Why did you hide it [her "depression" and suicidal thoughts] from your parents?
Stacy Hollingsworth: I didn't want to hurt them. I knew they would be the type of parents, who would feel they were somehow to blame for my illness. (...)
Q: Were you afraid at all they wouldn't understand?
S.H.: (...) If they did have a negative reaction to it somehow, it was something that I couldn't escape. They would be in my life the whole time.
(From "Stacy", 1. part)
Sharon Hollingworth, Stacy's mother: And then I thought, it was all over, this was the end of all those dreams a parent has for her child. She certainly wasn't going to have the life, that I had hoped and expected her...
(...)
She never really had a chance with us, because we never opened the dialogue. And I guess, she didn't want to disappoint us, or worry us. She was the perfect child.
(From "Stacy", 2. part)
Well well... But no, of course it weren't inhumane expectations to this "perfect child", or the "overachiever", or "All-Star-daughter", as the documentary also describes Stacy, that were causing her trouble at an age, where about everybody, as a quite natural part of their personal development, starts to question among other things society's norms and values of perfection and perfect achievement. Nope. It was a chemical imbalance in the brain, that, as it will seem to me, most if not all teenagers do suffer from. Just as a remarkable number of teenagers suffers from a biological brain disease, that's called "I'm coming from a broken home", "I get bullied", or something else along those lines.
Yes, indeed, the documentary mentions these things. Nevertheless, I got the impression, that being bullied, growing up with violence and abuse (if it is in the shape of parental expectations of perfection, or other) is caused by the victim's defective brain. NAMI's essential message: Depressed? Suicidal? Never ever blame your parents, or society! Blame your brain!
I wonder, why screen at all? Why not straightforward call being a teen a "mental illness", and NAMI-style drug up everybody above age, hm, let's see, 12? 10? or no, wait, it's "early intervention" isn't it? so, 8 maybe? who isn't yet on one or the other or several kinds of mindaltering drugs?
There are numerous options to comment on (and rate) this piece of propaganda at the site. Make use of them, if you feel up to facing tons of NAMI-parents' cheers. Right now, I myself don't.
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Saturday, 28 March 2009
"Look, even the mentally ill themselves do believe in it!"
This is something, I think I'll never quite get:
Once more, I got into a, luckily very short, but nevertheless, discussion with a person, who identifies as, well, yeah, a consumer, suffering from "manic depression", and, of course, the pills were no less than godsend.
The discussion: Danish psychiatry has made a film, Åbenhed gør stærk - om skizofreni i familien (Strength through openness - about schizophrenia in the family) technically, formally, obviously very much like Daniel Mackler's Take These Broken Wings - cross cutting between sequences of interviews with respectively two young people, Helle and Emil, labelled with "schizophrenia", their relatives, some friends, and, of course, professionals, especially one consultant psychiatrist from the OPUS-project. In regard to the "message" on the other hand, the Danish film, not surprisingly, tells the opposite of what Daniel Mackler's film tells. "Schizophrenia" is a chronic biological brain disease, due to defective genes, that cause abnormalities in brain structure, and the best treatment option is lifelong medication with "antipsychotics".
And the family? Well, it's important to assure the relatives, that it is not their fault. It's all just defective genes. But, of course, it is also very important to involve the relatives, and psycho-educate them - about biological brain diseases, what else?! - so that they can support "treatment" compliance. And when all this is in place, voilà, what a success story! Never mind, that one of the two young people in the film is in need of assisted housing, as she can't take care of herself due to the drugs' side effects. And never mind, that both face a future on disability, and dependent on the system for the rest of their, approximately 25 years shorter than average, life.
Now, during the past couple of weeks I've noticed numerous hits on my Danish blog, search terms "film about schizophrenia", and since I imagine, that it is the above described botched job people are looking for, and not necessarily Daniel Mackler's or Leo Regan's film, I combed the net for reviews, and wrote my own "not-quite-a-review", always just looking to meet the public's needs and desires... Not-quite-a-review, because I haven't seen the film myself, and I don't intend to, since I won't pay as much as one cent for crap like that. I actually won't give as much as one cent for whatever it might be that supports biopsychiatry. Not if I can help it.
And, yeah, right, I do a hatchet job on the film, slamming its message totally as being oppressive, discriminating, and disempowering, calling the "expert's factual information" for a bunch of lies with no scientific evidence to support it, and the filmmakers for fraudulent when they choose to interview a couple of colonized consumers and their just as colonized relatives, only and solely to, as I see it, give the impression that psychiatry's hopeless message is the one and only truth: "Look, even the mentally ill themselves do believe in it!"
The thing is, that even though the film tries to make the viewer believe, that Helle's and Emil's words are their very own words, they are not. They are the system's words. - Actually, this borders to abuse of these two young people. Colonialism controls, displaces or exterminates the original. In order to exploit. Psychiatric colonialism controls, displaces or exterminates its victims' thoughts, emotions and language in order to exploit its victims' capability to talk, making them repeat its own ideology like a parrot. That. is. abuse.
Well, the pain in the neck I am, I let both the filmmakers, the "expert", and the three people, whose hurrays I've based my own review on, know about it. One of them reacts, so far. The "manic depressive" consumer, I mentioned above. She doesn't react commenting on my blog, but by e-mail. Somewhat resentful at the fact, that not all people agree with her on psychiatry and its pills being a godsend, and that some people dare to question that having insight and being "treatment" compliant would be the road to recovery, as she wants to have it in her review of the film.
Now I wonder: what's in for someone like her, that she defends an industry, that ruins people's lives in droves, just to make a profit? I mean, she doesn't make a profit by doing so, as far as I can see. Apart from the purely idealistic profit of a false ego-identification, that is: "I'm manic depressive! I suffer from a real disease!" Does that rotten ego-identification really mean so much more than the lives of millions of people?? I just can't but keep on wondering...
Once more, I got into a, luckily very short, but nevertheless, discussion with a person, who identifies as, well, yeah, a consumer, suffering from "manic depression", and, of course, the pills were no less than godsend.
The discussion: Danish psychiatry has made a film, Åbenhed gør stærk - om skizofreni i familien (Strength through openness - about schizophrenia in the family) technically, formally, obviously very much like Daniel Mackler's Take These Broken Wings - cross cutting between sequences of interviews with respectively two young people, Helle and Emil, labelled with "schizophrenia", their relatives, some friends, and, of course, professionals, especially one consultant psychiatrist from the OPUS-project. In regard to the "message" on the other hand, the Danish film, not surprisingly, tells the opposite of what Daniel Mackler's film tells. "Schizophrenia" is a chronic biological brain disease, due to defective genes, that cause abnormalities in brain structure, and the best treatment option is lifelong medication with "antipsychotics".
And the family? Well, it's important to assure the relatives, that it is not their fault. It's all just defective genes. But, of course, it is also very important to involve the relatives, and psycho-educate them - about biological brain diseases, what else?! - so that they can support "treatment" compliance. And when all this is in place, voilà, what a success story! Never mind, that one of the two young people in the film is in need of assisted housing, as she can't take care of herself due to the drugs' side effects. And never mind, that both face a future on disability, and dependent on the system for the rest of their, approximately 25 years shorter than average, life.
Now, during the past couple of weeks I've noticed numerous hits on my Danish blog, search terms "film about schizophrenia", and since I imagine, that it is the above described botched job people are looking for, and not necessarily Daniel Mackler's or Leo Regan's film, I combed the net for reviews, and wrote my own "not-quite-a-review", always just looking to meet the public's needs and desires... Not-quite-a-review, because I haven't seen the film myself, and I don't intend to, since I won't pay as much as one cent for crap like that. I actually won't give as much as one cent for whatever it might be that supports biopsychiatry. Not if I can help it.
And, yeah, right, I do a hatchet job on the film, slamming its message totally as being oppressive, discriminating, and disempowering, calling the "expert's factual information" for a bunch of lies with no scientific evidence to support it, and the filmmakers for fraudulent when they choose to interview a couple of colonized consumers and their just as colonized relatives, only and solely to, as I see it, give the impression that psychiatry's hopeless message is the one and only truth: "Look, even the mentally ill themselves do believe in it!"
The thing is, that even though the film tries to make the viewer believe, that Helle's and Emil's words are their very own words, they are not. They are the system's words. - Actually, this borders to abuse of these two young people. Colonialism controls, displaces or exterminates the original. In order to exploit. Psychiatric colonialism controls, displaces or exterminates its victims' thoughts, emotions and language in order to exploit its victims' capability to talk, making them repeat its own ideology like a parrot. That. is. abuse.
Well, the pain in the neck I am, I let both the filmmakers, the "expert", and the three people, whose hurrays I've based my own review on, know about it. One of them reacts, so far. The "manic depressive" consumer, I mentioned above. She doesn't react commenting on my blog, but by e-mail. Somewhat resentful at the fact, that not all people agree with her on psychiatry and its pills being a godsend, and that some people dare to question that having insight and being "treatment" compliant would be the road to recovery, as she wants to have it in her review of the film.
Now I wonder: what's in for someone like her, that she defends an industry, that ruins people's lives in droves, just to make a profit? I mean, she doesn't make a profit by doing so, as far as I can see. Apart from the purely idealistic profit of a false ego-identification, that is: "I'm manic depressive! I suffer from a real disease!" Does that rotten ego-identification really mean so much more than the lives of millions of people?? I just can't but keep on wondering...
Sunday, 15 March 2009
The murder of Torben Martin Bødker, a Bosnia-veteran
"Probably he had a psychological flaw in advance, that then worsened by the things he met with in Bosnia," the president of Danmarks Internationale Veteran Organisation (Denmark's international veteran organization), Bjarne Hesselberg, is quoted in an article on politiken.dk, published on Wednesday.
Torben Martin Bødker, a 32-year-old Bosnia-veteran, was shot and killed by two police officers on Tuesday, 9th, 2009. Torben had returned to Denmark from service in Bosnia ten years ago, suffering from severe PTSD. He did not get help.
His family and the veteran's organization tell, that they did what they could, but that Torben was reluctant to talk about his problems. Any wonder?? What is PTSD? PTSD is having looked the inhumanity of, for instance, war in the eyes. Why would anyone, who has experienced that, ever wish to talk about it with the people, who endorse this very inhumanity?? What Torben would have needed, was someone to talk to, who was not a relative nor in any way affiliated with the military. Someone, who would have valued his points of view unconditionally. He did not get that help. Because our society can't accept criticism of its abusiveness. Because it can't accept anyone questioning the necessity and validity of, for instance, warfare. Why it doesn't hesitate a second to label those, who do question as "mentally ill" and "psychologically flawed". More abuse. More warfare.
Torben Martin Bødker went to a hospital, just recently, begging for help. He was sent home. But when his family contacted the authorities to have him committed, two police officers in uniform showed up at his place. He attacked them with a sword. Because he was "mentally ill", "nuts", as the media tells us? NO!!! Because he felt cornered, and had to defend himself!
From "Bekendtgørelse om fremgangsmåden ved gennemførelse af tvangsindlæggelser" (Notice on the procedure of implementation of involuntary hospitalization):
§10, subsection 2: "The committing physician should if possible be present at the implementation of the involuntary hospitalization." (my italics)
§12: "The executing police officers should if possible be in plain clothes." (my italics)
Which in plain English means: it is completely down to the individual physician him-/herself, if s/he feels like being present or not. And it is completely down to the individual cop, if s/he feels like changing, before s/he pounds and breaks open your door.
But no! Torben Martin Bødker was not defending himself. After all, the cops came to help him, who was a psychologically flawed loonie, not to harm him, right?! It were the cops, who were defending themselves when they shot and killed this psychologically flawed, completely gone bonkers individual, right?! Wrong!
After the incident, everybody involved was offered counselling by a psychologist. My question is: where was this psychologist when the cops came to bust Torben Martin Bødker?? Where was this psychologist when Torben Martin Bødker showed up at the hospital, begging for help???
A system, that doesn't only deny people like Torben Martin Bødker the least help , but into the bargain denies them help in order to later on in the process assault and kill them - in the name of "help" - is a grossly abusive system. And it is a grossly failed system in regard to real help. When will this change?! And when will the media stop covering this system's ass?!
Torben Martin Bødker
Read also: Sholom Keller, A Letter To My Shrink,
Doug Bremner's blog post DSM V Shadow Team Strikes Back at Psychiatric Establishment on PTSD,
and an update to this post.
Torben Martin Bødker, a 32-year-old Bosnia-veteran, was shot and killed by two police officers on Tuesday, 9th, 2009. Torben had returned to Denmark from service in Bosnia ten years ago, suffering from severe PTSD. He did not get help.
His family and the veteran's organization tell, that they did what they could, but that Torben was reluctant to talk about his problems. Any wonder?? What is PTSD? PTSD is having looked the inhumanity of, for instance, war in the eyes. Why would anyone, who has experienced that, ever wish to talk about it with the people, who endorse this very inhumanity?? What Torben would have needed, was someone to talk to, who was not a relative nor in any way affiliated with the military. Someone, who would have valued his points of view unconditionally. He did not get that help. Because our society can't accept criticism of its abusiveness. Because it can't accept anyone questioning the necessity and validity of, for instance, warfare. Why it doesn't hesitate a second to label those, who do question as "mentally ill" and "psychologically flawed". More abuse. More warfare.
Torben Martin Bødker went to a hospital, just recently, begging for help. He was sent home. But when his family contacted the authorities to have him committed, two police officers in uniform showed up at his place. He attacked them with a sword. Because he was "mentally ill", "nuts", as the media tells us? NO!!! Because he felt cornered, and had to defend himself!
From "Bekendtgørelse om fremgangsmåden ved gennemførelse af tvangsindlæggelser" (Notice on the procedure of implementation of involuntary hospitalization):
§10, subsection 2: "The committing physician should if possible be present at the implementation of the involuntary hospitalization." (my italics)
§12: "The executing police officers should if possible be in plain clothes." (my italics)
Which in plain English means: it is completely down to the individual physician him-/herself, if s/he feels like being present or not. And it is completely down to the individual cop, if s/he feels like changing, before s/he pounds and breaks open your door.
But no! Torben Martin Bødker was not defending himself. After all, the cops came to help him, who was a psychologically flawed loonie, not to harm him, right?! It were the cops, who were defending themselves when they shot and killed this psychologically flawed, completely gone bonkers individual, right?! Wrong!
After the incident, everybody involved was offered counselling by a psychologist. My question is: where was this psychologist when the cops came to bust Torben Martin Bødker?? Where was this psychologist when Torben Martin Bødker showed up at the hospital, begging for help???
A system, that doesn't only deny people like Torben Martin Bødker the least help , but into the bargain denies them help in order to later on in the process assault and kill them - in the name of "help" - is a grossly abusive system. And it is a grossly failed system in regard to real help. When will this change?! And when will the media stop covering this system's ass?!
Torben Martin Bødker
Read also: Sholom Keller, A Letter To My Shrink,
Doug Bremner's blog post DSM V Shadow Team Strikes Back at Psychiatric Establishment on PTSD,
and an update to this post.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
"Thou Shalt Not Be Aware"
What I would add to this video is how "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" not only applies to abuse/mistreatment in families - and not being unconditionally loved by your parents to me equals to child abuse/mistreatment, just as the denial of the truth does - but just as much to a society, that only "loves" (i.e. accepts) you under the condition that you live up to its norms and values. Which, in regard to our modern western civilization, means that you have to be the perfect consumer/producer in order to receive society's unconditional love, its acceptance.
Well, and I'd like to add, that psychiatry of course not only covers over the abuse/mistreatment performed by single private persons, families - while society as a whole would condemn abuse/mistreatment - but indeed covers over the abuse/mistreatment, that pervades society on all levels, and that is the foundation of consumerism: "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" that modern western civilization's norms and values are thoroughly unnatural, destructive, and abusive, and thus inhumane - causing inhumane suffering, both physically and psychologically. "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" that it is modern western civilization, who suffers from a chronic imbalance - of power. "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" that it is perfectly natural and healthy to react "crazy" to "normality", i.e. to the real insanity.
If society truly and honestly were dismissive of oppression, betrayal, fraud, exploitation, abuse, mistreatment, etc., psychiatry as a societal institution would never have been established. Instead people, who'd been exposed to these assaults, would be offered real help, not punishment and additional assault.
Read also Gianna's post on this video.
Monday, 2 March 2009
Merete Nordentoft, the OPUS-project, and The International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and other Psychoses, ISPS
The following is a rather nasty slamming of the Danish branch of The International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and other Psychoses, ISPS. So, don't get me wrong, it is not a critique of the international organization, or of any other countries' groups! - With the exception of the Swedish ISPS-group, that is.*)
I must admit, that it was a somewhat pleasant surprise when I learned, that The International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and other Psychoses, ISPS, also has a Danish branch. "They hide efficiently," I wrote in an e-mail to Daniel Mackler, since I usually don't miss important things going on in this country's mh system.
Well, apart from the fact, that even an organization, that gives high priority to psychological treatment options as help for people in extreme states of mind, does have its problems with avoiding to pathologize the individual, I thought, naive as I at times can be, that there maybe really was not just a very few helpers, that can be counted on the fingers of one hand, but maybe even a whole organization of helpers, who do take people who experience extreme states of mind seriously, and really make an effort to offer these people the kind of help they want. And well, the pathologizing we can thank Freud for. Just as we can thank him for psychoanalysis. So...
I guess, I'll have to reconsider.
For a moment, I thought I'd add a link to the ISPS to my sidebar. And yes, the American branch of the organization does actually have some very interesting articles on its site, and on the home page it says: "We promote the humane, comprehensive, and in-depth treatment of psychotic disorders." Very nice, indeed! So, maybe this really was something, I should add to my collection of recommended Danish sites?
Now, I don't just link to something without first investigating a little further what I am possibly going to recommend. - Which doesn't mean that I would be looking for 100% conformity with my own views, only. But well, one has to draw the line somewhere, right?
The first name I came across was Bent Rosenbaum, a Danish psychiatrist. This reverberated mixed emotions. The next name did no longer reverberate mixed emotions, but red alert: Merete Nordentoft.
Why red alert? Well, Merete Nordentoft, psychiatrist and one of the Danish mainstream medias' pets on the subject of "mental illness", also is the initiator of the so-called OPUS-project **). The acronym stands for "tidlig opsporing og behandling af unge psykotiske", meaning "early detection and treatment of young psychotics", which already tells me a whole lot. Alone the choice of words: them (the "psychotics") - and us. (And "opsporing" may as well be translated as "tracking down", giving the concept a whole new - somehow slightly TAC-like - dimension...)
But let's have a look at what this, allegedly so revolutionary, project actually is all about. According to the report, I link to above, treatment consists of five different initiatives: Individual dialogues, medical treatment (here we go!), psycho-education (Honi soit qui mal y pense!), social skills training, and family work (of course meaning work with your biological family, your relatives. Certainly not the "family" of your own choice, your friends. As we all know, care providers are much more fond of relatives than of friends. And they have their reasons, yahahhh!).
'Well,' you may think, ' individual dialogues does sound promising, doesn't it?' Let me tell you right away: I'll have to disappoint you. In another report on the project, that in the meantime has disappeared from the net, it was stated that the individual counselling a person is entitled to during the two-year-period she is assigned to the project, is limited to 12 - TWELVE! - in certain cases up to 24 - TWENTY FOUR! - sessions with a therapist, and that the subject of the sessions would have to be agreed upon beforehand. Yep. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. While the counselling itself definitely turns into a joke, under these circumstances.
My own course included 45 sessions, spread over the period of three and a half years. A (-n absolute) minimum, when it comes to "psychosis". And only possible because I a) wasn't twenty years old - or young - anymore, but more like two times twenty, with the according life-experience and a certain background knowledge in relevant areas (such as philosophy, literature, and, yeah, psychology/-analysis).
Because I b) was as motivated and determined as you possibly could be - not to learn how to live with a chronic, limiting illness, but to become aware of, understand, and resolve my existential problems.
Because I c) wrote - 24/7 ("I'm fond of saying psychosis does not fit the 50-minute hour -- because it goes on 24 hours." -Loren Mosher), and not for the drawer, but for my therapist to read. Which means, that, anytime, I could have a certainly imaginary but nevertheless somewhat concrete conversation with my therapist, on paper. Also at 3 a.m. in the morning, if necessary.
Because I d) wasn't additionally traumatized by a stay at a locked ward, respectively by the betrayal of my trust it would have been to arrange for such a stay against my explicit will. Something that inevitably hadn't only meant a remarkable setback in my recovery, but that under all circumstances also had ruined any trust in my therapist for good. And that in any other professional in addition. While I, at the same time, was pretty clear about what to do in case it should turn out, that there, obviously, was no trusting in humanity at all. "Suicide was my ticket out," Catherine Penney says in Take These Broken Wings, asked about what she thinks would have happened had she not met Daniel Dorman. It also was my ticket out.
Because I e) wasn't at any time drugged,
because f) nothing ever was agreed upon beforehand but date and time for the next appointment,
and last but certainly not least because I g) didn't raise to the biological bait, other than for a, luckily very short, period where I had some doubt, caused by the massive propaganda everywhere. By the way the only period of time in my entire life where I seriously contemplated suicide - the real deal, not the "I want/have to go somewhere else"-thing the voices tried to convince me of. You don't change your genes, or a chronic chemical imbalance in your neurotransmitters just like that. You can only, passively, hope, that the "medication" works its magic. But you can always become active, and change learned behavior - and recover fully.
Which brings us back to the OPUS-project. According to the report I link to above, the weekly dialogue sessions are sessions with what is called a contact-person. The term "therapist" thus has disappeared entirely from this, obviously newer report. So what. Eventually, it anyway was just a joke, wasn't it?
Well, and in this, newer, report it says under "individual dialogue":
"The dialogue treatment can include many elements: counselling, guidance, crisis intervention, psycho education, relaps prevention, psychological support of insight and actual cognitive therapy. [Ah, so there they maybe were anyway, those 12, maximum 24 sessions with a therapist??? Absolutely out of this world fantastic!]
In general, the dialogues can be scheduled according to the phase, the patient is in, like this:
Acute phase:
Contact and treatment compliance are established. The dialogues are primarily of supporting and psycho-educating character, (...)
Stabilizing phase:
The patient is supported in him continuing to follow the treatment, although he has improved. Psychological support is given for insight and acceptance, (...)
Maintenance phase:
Support is given to continue the treatment, (...)"
Under "medical treatment" you can read in detail about what exactly is supported with such a great effort and persistence:
"For most of the patients antipsychotic medical treatment has been indicated."
Really cosy it gets a little further down in the document, where it is stated, that many people in crisis experience periods of "depression" - strange, very strange indeed, that they feel down after they were made believe, they suffer from a chronic biological brain disease - which then of course preferably are treated with antidepressants, SSRIs, according to the report. Since the "depression" is to be regarded part of the biological disease, and certainly not a result of humiliating and disillusioning messages from the "helpers", that render the individual in crisis completely disempowered and helpless, no no! And since, as we all know, they've shown to be so effective, the SSRIs, yes! And by the way, no no, it is neither the so-called "antipsychotic medication", that can cause depression as a side effect!
Yah, and since both "psychotic and depressed states can cause a lot of anxiety" - no no, this is certainly not a side effect of the recommended SSRIs! - we can easily add one or the other benzo to the cocktail, that in case of a diagnozed substance abuse (and we will have to term the consumption of three different psychoactive substances on a daily basis for an indefinite period of time - it's chronic, remember?! - a substance abuse, although it hardly will be diagnozed) can get spiced up with some methadone or the like. Cheers! Or: Your health!...
If you're lucky, you then end up like Gianna, who, after almost twenty years in a medical daze, saw through the charade, and now in her fifth year, physically seriously damaged by the drugs, struggles to free herself from the prescribed psych drug hell. If you're not so lucky, you end up more or less a vegetable at some supported housing program - or like Luise.
And, in case you should be the owner of a healthy amount of scepticism, OPUS also has a solution for this:
"It often happens, that the patient doesn't wish to take medication, especially the antipsychotic medication. (...) At OPUS our philosophy has been, that, if the patient didn't want the medicine, that was found necessary for him, the patient had his reasons, and it was the task of the staff to investigate the background, educate about what the medication could be used for, and which side effects could be expected, and to try continuously to motivate acceptance of the relevant treatment." Yep. And then you end up like Gianna, or Luise, anyway. When you, because you already are in a somewhat vulnerable state of mind, can't stand the psycho-terror (being "motivated") anymore. With or without healthy scepticism.
Note that "treatment" in the above quotation equals to drugs. So, don't count on other kinds of treatment to be offered. Obviously, the weekly dialogues are not so much meant as treatment in a therapeutic fashion, as they are meant to be indoctrination. While, in a way, indoctrination is the exact opposite of therapy.
OPUS finally died as a "masterpiece", in my opinion, with the following quotation, that, characteristically, is found under "Familywork", which according to the report includes "individual meetings at the start of treatment" with the relatives, "without the patient but with the patients acceptance" - What is attempted to be saved here, by the bell? The "Nothing about us without us"-concept? Nice try. Try again! Cf. above: psycho-terror of people in extremely vulnerable states of mind - :
" - psycho education with weight on a biological model (guilt-reducing)"
How did Loren Mosher put it? " 'Biologically based brain diseases' are certainly convenient for families and practitioners alike. It is no-fault insurance against personal responsibility." And: "Biological differences 'make them different from us fundamentally,' he says. 'They're sort of a slightly different race than we are.' Mosher thinks it's all 'a way of carefully saying, 'These people are really different. And therefore we have the right to do whatever we goddamn please with them,' ' " he is quoted in this article.
Or, to put it in a slightly different way: Whether or not it costs "the schizophrenics" their lives - due to the drugs, or because suicide, quite logically and not the least sick, becomes the ticket out of an existence with a chronic brain disease - most important is, that doctors and relatives can wash their hands.
More fitting than one immediately should think, that Merete Nordentoft was awarded Den Gyldne Skalpel (The Golden Scalpel) for the OPUS-project. Reminds me of a certain Nobel Prize laureate...
And with this quite clearly stated disdain for people in crisis, the Danish branch of the ISPS, which Merete Nordentoft is a member of, and at whose International Symposium at Copenhagen in June 2009 she is going to participate as a member of the local scientific committee, died too in its shape of a pleasant surprise, and a potential link in my sidebar.
_______________
Concerning other than the "insight" and "treatment alliance" promoting "support" offered by OPUS: I had a friend who was assigned to OPUS. "A place to stay? Sorry, we can't help you with that. A job? Sorry, we can't help you with that." But the pills he got. Straight out. And all for free. He didn't even need to ask for them. Oh, and along with the pills came the message: "It's a lifelong burden." I wouldn't be surprised if he killed himself. He chose to believe in their message - and was devastated by it - although I did my very best. But it was my word against the "experts"...
This really must be termed excellent support of people in crisis.
And no, I was wrong. They don't hide. Not at all. They're right there. Having a biobiobiopsychiatrically splendid time right in the middle of Danish biobiobiopsychiatry. The members of the Danish branch of the ISPS. Obviously, promoting the "psychological treatments" in their interpretation means nothing much else than promoting "the slightly more sophisticated" version of pitch-black, poisonous pedagogy. Sad but true. But not that surprising anyway, in the country of the Jante Law.
By the way, also Lene Falgaard Eplov, who is convinced that recovery can't be anything else than learning to live with a chronic brain disease, and biopsychologist Torben Schjødt are members of the Danish ISPS group. Uhm, yah, R.I.P. ISPS Denmark.
_______________
If you should read the report on the OPUS project, note that the possibility to receive trauma related therapy isn't mentioned once throughout the entire report. Not even a superficial look at the individual in crisis' life story is mentioned. Thus it is denied in advance, that traumatic experiences can cause emotional suffering. Apropos of the persecutor at any given time doing whatever is in his power to prevent the victim - and the surroundings - from becoming aware of the abuse/mistreatment.
The report is an evaluation from the years 1998 to 2002. The OPUS-project still operates, by and large in the same way as described in the report. It's outcomes: no change in the number of people who become chronically ill and go on disability - roughly 90% of those labelled with "schizophrenia" or other "psychotic disorders" in this country. Indeed, what a masterpiece!
_______________
*) While I'm at it: A quote from the "Guidelines for practice" published by the Swedish ISPS-group: "Antipsychotics are a corner stone in the treatment of patients with psychosis. During the acute phase benzodiazepines are to be offered to treat sleepnessness and anxiety."
**) Originally, I here had a link to a paper on the OPUS-project published on Århus Universitetshospital Risskov's - Danish biopsychiatry's stronghold, setting the fashion for the psychiatric system all over the country, and the location for OPUS to, initially, be established - website. Unfortunately, the paper has disappeared from the website. Several other publications about OPUS can be found here though.
I must admit, that it was a somewhat pleasant surprise when I learned, that The International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and other Psychoses, ISPS, also has a Danish branch. "They hide efficiently," I wrote in an e-mail to Daniel Mackler, since I usually don't miss important things going on in this country's mh system.
Well, apart from the fact, that even an organization, that gives high priority to psychological treatment options as help for people in extreme states of mind, does have its problems with avoiding to pathologize the individual, I thought, naive as I at times can be, that there maybe really was not just a very few helpers, that can be counted on the fingers of one hand, but maybe even a whole organization of helpers, who do take people who experience extreme states of mind seriously, and really make an effort to offer these people the kind of help they want. And well, the pathologizing we can thank Freud for. Just as we can thank him for psychoanalysis. So...
I guess, I'll have to reconsider.
For a moment, I thought I'd add a link to the ISPS to my sidebar. And yes, the American branch of the organization does actually have some very interesting articles on its site, and on the home page it says: "We promote the humane, comprehensive, and in-depth treatment of psychotic disorders." Very nice, indeed! So, maybe this really was something, I should add to my collection of recommended Danish sites?
Now, I don't just link to something without first investigating a little further what I am possibly going to recommend. - Which doesn't mean that I would be looking for 100% conformity with my own views, only. But well, one has to draw the line somewhere, right?
The first name I came across was Bent Rosenbaum, a Danish psychiatrist. This reverberated mixed emotions. The next name did no longer reverberate mixed emotions, but red alert: Merete Nordentoft.
Why red alert? Well, Merete Nordentoft, psychiatrist and one of the Danish mainstream medias' pets on the subject of "mental illness", also is the initiator of the so-called OPUS-project **). The acronym stands for "tidlig opsporing og behandling af unge psykotiske", meaning "early detection and treatment of young psychotics", which already tells me a whole lot. Alone the choice of words: them (the "psychotics") - and us. (And "opsporing" may as well be translated as "tracking down", giving the concept a whole new - somehow slightly TAC-like - dimension...)
But let's have a look at what this, allegedly so revolutionary, project actually is all about. According to the report, I link to above, treatment consists of five different initiatives: Individual dialogues, medical treatment (here we go!), psycho-education (Honi soit qui mal y pense!), social skills training, and family work (of course meaning work with your biological family, your relatives. Certainly not the "family" of your own choice, your friends. As we all know, care providers are much more fond of relatives than of friends. And they have their reasons, yahahhh!).
'Well,' you may think, ' individual dialogues does sound promising, doesn't it?' Let me tell you right away: I'll have to disappoint you. In another report on the project, that in the meantime has disappeared from the net, it was stated that the individual counselling a person is entitled to during the two-year-period she is assigned to the project, is limited to 12 - TWELVE! - in certain cases up to 24 - TWENTY FOUR! - sessions with a therapist, and that the subject of the sessions would have to be agreed upon beforehand. Yep. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. While the counselling itself definitely turns into a joke, under these circumstances.
My own course included 45 sessions, spread over the period of three and a half years. A (-n absolute) minimum, when it comes to "psychosis". And only possible because I a) wasn't twenty years old - or young - anymore, but more like two times twenty, with the according life-experience and a certain background knowledge in relevant areas (such as philosophy, literature, and, yeah, psychology/-analysis).
Because I b) was as motivated and determined as you possibly could be - not to learn how to live with a chronic, limiting illness, but to become aware of, understand, and resolve my existential problems.
Because I c) wrote - 24/7 ("I'm fond of saying psychosis does not fit the 50-minute hour -- because it goes on 24 hours." -Loren Mosher), and not for the drawer, but for my therapist to read. Which means, that, anytime, I could have a certainly imaginary but nevertheless somewhat concrete conversation with my therapist, on paper. Also at 3 a.m. in the morning, if necessary.
Because I d) wasn't additionally traumatized by a stay at a locked ward, respectively by the betrayal of my trust it would have been to arrange for such a stay against my explicit will. Something that inevitably hadn't only meant a remarkable setback in my recovery, but that under all circumstances also had ruined any trust in my therapist for good. And that in any other professional in addition. While I, at the same time, was pretty clear about what to do in case it should turn out, that there, obviously, was no trusting in humanity at all. "Suicide was my ticket out," Catherine Penney says in Take These Broken Wings, asked about what she thinks would have happened had she not met Daniel Dorman. It also was my ticket out.
Because I e) wasn't at any time drugged,
because f) nothing ever was agreed upon beforehand but date and time for the next appointment,
and last but certainly not least because I g) didn't raise to the biological bait, other than for a, luckily very short, period where I had some doubt, caused by the massive propaganda everywhere. By the way the only period of time in my entire life where I seriously contemplated suicide - the real deal, not the "I want/have to go somewhere else"-thing the voices tried to convince me of. You don't change your genes, or a chronic chemical imbalance in your neurotransmitters just like that. You can only, passively, hope, that the "medication" works its magic. But you can always become active, and change learned behavior - and recover fully.
Which brings us back to the OPUS-project. According to the report I link to above, the weekly dialogue sessions are sessions with what is called a contact-person. The term "therapist" thus has disappeared entirely from this, obviously newer report. So what. Eventually, it anyway was just a joke, wasn't it?
Well, and in this, newer, report it says under "individual dialogue":
"The dialogue treatment can include many elements: counselling, guidance, crisis intervention, psycho education, relaps prevention, psychological support of insight and actual cognitive therapy. [Ah, so there they maybe were anyway, those 12, maximum 24 sessions with a therapist??? Absolutely out of this world fantastic!]
In general, the dialogues can be scheduled according to the phase, the patient is in, like this:
Acute phase:
Contact and treatment compliance are established. The dialogues are primarily of supporting and psycho-educating character, (...)
Stabilizing phase:
The patient is supported in him continuing to follow the treatment, although he has improved. Psychological support is given for insight and acceptance, (...)
Maintenance phase:
Support is given to continue the treatment, (...)"
Under "medical treatment" you can read in detail about what exactly is supported with such a great effort and persistence:
"For most of the patients antipsychotic medical treatment has been indicated."
Really cosy it gets a little further down in the document, where it is stated, that many people in crisis experience periods of "depression" - strange, very strange indeed, that they feel down after they were made believe, they suffer from a chronic biological brain disease - which then of course preferably are treated with antidepressants, SSRIs, according to the report. Since the "depression" is to be regarded part of the biological disease, and certainly not a result of humiliating and disillusioning messages from the "helpers", that render the individual in crisis completely disempowered and helpless, no no! And since, as we all know, they've shown to be so effective, the SSRIs, yes! And by the way, no no, it is neither the so-called "antipsychotic medication", that can cause depression as a side effect!
Yah, and since both "psychotic and depressed states can cause a lot of anxiety" - no no, this is certainly not a side effect of the recommended SSRIs! - we can easily add one or the other benzo to the cocktail, that in case of a diagnozed substance abuse (and we will have to term the consumption of three different psychoactive substances on a daily basis for an indefinite period of time - it's chronic, remember?! - a substance abuse, although it hardly will be diagnozed) can get spiced up with some methadone or the like. Cheers! Or: Your health!...
If you're lucky, you then end up like Gianna, who, after almost twenty years in a medical daze, saw through the charade, and now in her fifth year, physically seriously damaged by the drugs, struggles to free herself from the prescribed psych drug hell. If you're not so lucky, you end up more or less a vegetable at some supported housing program - or like Luise.
And, in case you should be the owner of a healthy amount of scepticism, OPUS also has a solution for this:
"It often happens, that the patient doesn't wish to take medication, especially the antipsychotic medication. (...) At OPUS our philosophy has been, that, if the patient didn't want the medicine, that was found necessary for him, the patient had his reasons, and it was the task of the staff to investigate the background, educate about what the medication could be used for, and which side effects could be expected, and to try continuously to motivate acceptance of the relevant treatment." Yep. And then you end up like Gianna, or Luise, anyway. When you, because you already are in a somewhat vulnerable state of mind, can't stand the psycho-terror (being "motivated") anymore. With or without healthy scepticism.
Note that "treatment" in the above quotation equals to drugs. So, don't count on other kinds of treatment to be offered. Obviously, the weekly dialogues are not so much meant as treatment in a therapeutic fashion, as they are meant to be indoctrination. While, in a way, indoctrination is the exact opposite of therapy.
OPUS finally died as a "masterpiece", in my opinion, with the following quotation, that, characteristically, is found under "Familywork", which according to the report includes "individual meetings at the start of treatment" with the relatives, "without the patient but with the patients acceptance" - What is attempted to be saved here, by the bell? The "Nothing about us without us"-concept? Nice try. Try again! Cf. above: psycho-terror of people in extremely vulnerable states of mind - :
" - psycho education with weight on a biological model (guilt-reducing)"
How did Loren Mosher put it? " 'Biologically based brain diseases' are certainly convenient for families and practitioners alike. It is no-fault insurance against personal responsibility." And: "Biological differences 'make them different from us fundamentally,' he says. 'They're sort of a slightly different race than we are.' Mosher thinks it's all 'a way of carefully saying, 'These people are really different. And therefore we have the right to do whatever we goddamn please with them,' ' " he is quoted in this article.
Or, to put it in a slightly different way: Whether or not it costs "the schizophrenics" their lives - due to the drugs, or because suicide, quite logically and not the least sick, becomes the ticket out of an existence with a chronic brain disease - most important is, that doctors and relatives can wash their hands.
More fitting than one immediately should think, that Merete Nordentoft was awarded Den Gyldne Skalpel (The Golden Scalpel) for the OPUS-project. Reminds me of a certain Nobel Prize laureate...
And with this quite clearly stated disdain for people in crisis, the Danish branch of the ISPS, which Merete Nordentoft is a member of, and at whose International Symposium at Copenhagen in June 2009 she is going to participate as a member of the local scientific committee, died too in its shape of a pleasant surprise, and a potential link in my sidebar.
_______________
Concerning other than the "insight" and "treatment alliance" promoting "support" offered by OPUS: I had a friend who was assigned to OPUS. "A place to stay? Sorry, we can't help you with that. A job? Sorry, we can't help you with that." But the pills he got. Straight out. And all for free. He didn't even need to ask for them. Oh, and along with the pills came the message: "It's a lifelong burden." I wouldn't be surprised if he killed himself. He chose to believe in their message - and was devastated by it - although I did my very best. But it was my word against the "experts"...
This really must be termed excellent support of people in crisis.
And no, I was wrong. They don't hide. Not at all. They're right there. Having a biobiobiopsychiatrically splendid time right in the middle of Danish biobiobiopsychiatry. The members of the Danish branch of the ISPS. Obviously, promoting the "psychological treatments" in their interpretation means nothing much else than promoting "the slightly more sophisticated" version of pitch-black, poisonous pedagogy. Sad but true. But not that surprising anyway, in the country of the Jante Law.
By the way, also Lene Falgaard Eplov, who is convinced that recovery can't be anything else than learning to live with a chronic brain disease, and biopsychologist Torben Schjødt are members of the Danish ISPS group. Uhm, yah, R.I.P. ISPS Denmark.
_______________
If you should read the report on the OPUS project, note that the possibility to receive trauma related therapy isn't mentioned once throughout the entire report. Not even a superficial look at the individual in crisis' life story is mentioned. Thus it is denied in advance, that traumatic experiences can cause emotional suffering. Apropos of the persecutor at any given time doing whatever is in his power to prevent the victim - and the surroundings - from becoming aware of the abuse/mistreatment.
The report is an evaluation from the years 1998 to 2002. The OPUS-project still operates, by and large in the same way as described in the report. It's outcomes: no change in the number of people who become chronically ill and go on disability - roughly 90% of those labelled with "schizophrenia" or other "psychotic disorders" in this country. Indeed, what a masterpiece!
_______________
*) While I'm at it: A quote from the "Guidelines for practice" published by the Swedish ISPS-group: "Antipsychotics are a corner stone in the treatment of patients with psychosis. During the acute phase benzodiazepines are to be offered to treat sleepnessness and anxiety."
**) Originally, I here had a link to a paper on the OPUS-project published on Århus Universitetshospital Risskov's - Danish biopsychiatry's stronghold, setting the fashion for the psychiatric system all over the country, and the location for OPUS to, initially, be established - website. Unfortunately, the paper has disappeared from the website. Several other publications about OPUS can be found here though.
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...
Monday, 16 June 2008
One last update to "Strokes of insight and blind spots"
A reply to Anonymous' comment on my first update on "Strokes of insight and blind spots":
I thought, I'd leave this alone. I changed my mind after I read another account by someone who has directly experienced NAMI's discriminating practices.
a) I definitely will read the book. And, just as definitely, I will do a piece on it, especially if I find, that I was wrong.
b) Some facts about NAMI:
- NAMI, just as mainstream-psychiatry, is extensively sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. It is no longer a secret, that NAMI between 2003 and 2005 received about three million dollars from Eli Lilly for downplaying the risks of Zyprexa. And alone in the first quarter of 2007 NAMI received 544,500 dollars from Eli Lilly. Correspondingly, NAMI advocates pharmaceutical "treatment" for people in emotional crisis with substances that provenly shorten the life expectancy of those "treated" with them, cause brain damage, especially at long-term, "maintenance" use, that have a chronifying effect on the course of the crisis, thus drastically reducing the chances for recovery, and that have several other serious and sometimes life-threatening "side"-effects. In other words: NAMI advocates the drugging of people with life-problems with disabling health- and sometimes even life-threatening chemical substances, and, as a matter of fact, the organization has shown itself to be open to bribery.
- NAMI primarily is a support organization for relatives of people in emotional crisis, although people in emotional crisis themselves are also welcome as members - though not always at NAMI-meetings, apropos of "Nothing about us without us!". This implies another conflict of interest, in addition to the above mentioned financial one: Often family members are part of the problem. The medical model efficiently covers up this part of the problem: "It's not our responsibility, it's your genes and brain chemistry that something is wrong with." In consequence, NAMI exclusively advocates the biological model ("the mentally ill", Jill Bolte Taylor's "schizophrenic" brother,...), leaving no consideration to psychological/social causes, although these, as mentioned, are at least as, if not more, likely to be the cause for emotional crises. There is no evidence for neither of these theories. Yet, there is a lot more circumstantial evidence in favour of a psychological/social cause, than there is in favour of a biological one. However, since there is no evidence, the only honest thing to do would be to allow both theories the same amount of consideration, and to offer real choice to people in crisis. Unfortunately, this is not NAMI's politics. Just as it isn't the politics of the mental health system in general. There isn't much "grassroots" about NAMI.
- Further, NAMI supports discriminating programs such as Teen Screen, the Mother's Act, and organizations like Treatment Advocacy Center, that advocate "assisted" (i.e. forced) outpatient treatment. A slogan like
"Nothing about us without us!" in this context becomes meaningless.
c) If Jill Bolte Taylor really took the role I recommend, and showed true compassion for her fellow human beings, she would, as the president of NAMI Greater Bloomington Area, distance herself explicitly from NAMI Indiana, and NAMI in general. She does not do so. Her note at NAMI Greater Bloomington Area's website states: "I LOVE NAMI".
If Jill Bolte Taylor had true compassion for her fellow human beings, she would distance herself explicitly from labelling people's life problems as "mental illnesses", "schizophrenia", "bipolar disorder", "ADHD", you name it. She would distance herself explicitly from labelling people as "mentally ill", "schizophrenic", "bipolar", etc. She does not do so.
As indicated, her not doing so implies that Eckhart Tolle himself would have to be labelled "mentally ill", "severely depressed", though recovered, by her. It implies, that he, according to Jill Bolte Taylor's conviction, suffered from an imbalance in his brain chemistry, that his past had absolutely nothing to do with his development as a human being, and that thus his (and many other philosophers' and spiritual teachers') insight, that emotional suffering is part of the human condition and often, actually as a precondition to it, can lead to enlightenment, is of no value, and indeed an illusion (a delusion of an ill mind??), whatsoever. You can't both have your cake and eat it!
As someone who has experienced extreme states of mind, which the mental health system, Jill Bolte Taylor advocates for, fancies to label "psychosis", or even "schizophrenia", who has experienced the destructiveness of labels - and nothing is indeed more destructive, no label is more negating the labelled human being than that of "mental illness" - , as someone who has seen what the mental health system, Jill Bolte Taylor advocates for, does to people, who has experienced the enormously consciousness-suppressing power of psychotropic drugs (though luckily only once in a non-psychiatric context!), Jill Bolte Taylor advocates for, and who was given the chance to experience the deeper truth of teachings like Eckhart Tolle's - the suffering-part very much included - I don't see true compassion in Jill Bolte Taylor's statements so far.
Which I see in both her and NAMI's statements is a whole lot of (self-)pity: "The horror of mental illness", "The tragedy of mental illness", etc. ("What have we done, that we have to put up with the horror and tragedy of mentally ill relatives?" - This question uttered in a NAMI-context being a purely rhetoric one. Watch Jill Bolte Taylor's attitude when Oprah mentions her "schizophrenic" brother!) While (self-)pity is more like the opposite of true compassion than non-compassion is.
I thought, I'd leave this alone. I changed my mind after I read another account by someone who has directly experienced NAMI's discriminating practices.
a) I definitely will read the book. And, just as definitely, I will do a piece on it, especially if I find, that I was wrong.
b) Some facts about NAMI:
- NAMI, just as mainstream-psychiatry, is extensively sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. It is no longer a secret, that NAMI between 2003 and 2005 received about three million dollars from Eli Lilly for downplaying the risks of Zyprexa. And alone in the first quarter of 2007 NAMI received 544,500 dollars from Eli Lilly. Correspondingly, NAMI advocates pharmaceutical "treatment" for people in emotional crisis with substances that provenly shorten the life expectancy of those "treated" with them, cause brain damage, especially at long-term, "maintenance" use, that have a chronifying effect on the course of the crisis, thus drastically reducing the chances for recovery, and that have several other serious and sometimes life-threatening "side"-effects. In other words: NAMI advocates the drugging of people with life-problems with disabling health- and sometimes even life-threatening chemical substances, and, as a matter of fact, the organization has shown itself to be open to bribery.
- NAMI primarily is a support organization for relatives of people in emotional crisis, although people in emotional crisis themselves are also welcome as members - though not always at NAMI-meetings, apropos of "Nothing about us without us!". This implies another conflict of interest, in addition to the above mentioned financial one: Often family members are part of the problem. The medical model efficiently covers up this part of the problem: "It's not our responsibility, it's your genes and brain chemistry that something is wrong with." In consequence, NAMI exclusively advocates the biological model ("the mentally ill", Jill Bolte Taylor's "schizophrenic" brother,...), leaving no consideration to psychological/social causes, although these, as mentioned, are at least as, if not more, likely to be the cause for emotional crises. There is no evidence for neither of these theories. Yet, there is a lot more circumstantial evidence in favour of a psychological/social cause, than there is in favour of a biological one. However, since there is no evidence, the only honest thing to do would be to allow both theories the same amount of consideration, and to offer real choice to people in crisis. Unfortunately, this is not NAMI's politics. Just as it isn't the politics of the mental health system in general. There isn't much "grassroots" about NAMI.
- Further, NAMI supports discriminating programs such as Teen Screen, the Mother's Act, and organizations like Treatment Advocacy Center, that advocate "assisted" (i.e. forced) outpatient treatment. A slogan like
"Nothing about us without us!" in this context becomes meaningless.
c) If Jill Bolte Taylor really took the role I recommend, and showed true compassion for her fellow human beings, she would, as the president of NAMI Greater Bloomington Area, distance herself explicitly from NAMI Indiana, and NAMI in general. She does not do so. Her note at NAMI Greater Bloomington Area's website states: "I LOVE NAMI".
If Jill Bolte Taylor had true compassion for her fellow human beings, she would distance herself explicitly from labelling people's life problems as "mental illnesses", "schizophrenia", "bipolar disorder", "ADHD", you name it. She would distance herself explicitly from labelling people as "mentally ill", "schizophrenic", "bipolar", etc. She does not do so.
As indicated, her not doing so implies that Eckhart Tolle himself would have to be labelled "mentally ill", "severely depressed", though recovered, by her. It implies, that he, according to Jill Bolte Taylor's conviction, suffered from an imbalance in his brain chemistry, that his past had absolutely nothing to do with his development as a human being, and that thus his (and many other philosophers' and spiritual teachers') insight, that emotional suffering is part of the human condition and often, actually as a precondition to it, can lead to enlightenment, is of no value, and indeed an illusion (a delusion of an ill mind??), whatsoever. You can't both have your cake and eat it!
As someone who has experienced extreme states of mind, which the mental health system, Jill Bolte Taylor advocates for, fancies to label "psychosis", or even "schizophrenia", who has experienced the destructiveness of labels - and nothing is indeed more destructive, no label is more negating the labelled human being than that of "mental illness" - , as someone who has seen what the mental health system, Jill Bolte Taylor advocates for, does to people, who has experienced the enormously consciousness-suppressing power of psychotropic drugs (though luckily only once in a non-psychiatric context!), Jill Bolte Taylor advocates for, and who was given the chance to experience the deeper truth of teachings like Eckhart Tolle's - the suffering-part very much included - I don't see true compassion in Jill Bolte Taylor's statements so far.
Which I see in both her and NAMI's statements is a whole lot of (self-)pity: "The horror of mental illness", "The tragedy of mental illness", etc. ("What have we done, that we have to put up with the horror and tragedy of mentally ill relatives?" - This question uttered in a NAMI-context being a purely rhetoric one. Watch Jill Bolte Taylor's attitude when Oprah mentions her "schizophrenic" brother!) While (self-)pity is more like the opposite of true compassion than non-compassion is.
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