Don't be fooled!

He ain't no Loren Mosher, he neither. Allen Frances, who has an op-ed in yesterday's NYT about the removal of the "bereavement exclusion" proposed for the DSM-V, and who writes critically about other proposed changes for the DSM-V on his blog DSM5 in Distress.

Let's have a look at the NYT-piece.

- "If this suggestion is adopted, many people who experience completely normal grief could be mislabeled as having a psychiatric problem," Frances writes. And, a little farther down: "This would be a wholesale medicalization of normal emotion, and it would result in the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of people who would do just fine if left alone to grieve with family and friends, as people always have."

First of all, any emotion that is labelled psychiatrically is in fact mislabelled. It is a completely natural thing for human beings to have emotions, also extreme emotions. So, any kind of diagnosis and treatment of these emotions as representing symptoms of a disease is overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Thus, there is no overdiagnosis or overtreatment in psychiatry, only diagnosis and treatment, and it is all "over-" and "mis-", in the sense that it all medicalizes, pathologizes, completely natural, even healthy, phenomena. Second, if it isn't always one's biological family, it more often than not is one's friends, one's network, that has one do "just fine", no matter what the problem. Psychiatry hasn't cured one single "patient" yet. Lots of "patients" have cured themselves, supported by friends, by their network, and sometimes by family.

- "It is not that psychiatrists are in bed with the drug companies, as is often alleged. The proposed change actually grows out of the best of intentions," Frances claims after having mentioned the drug companies' obvious greed, and what it probably will lead to in case the "bereavement exclusion" is removed from DSM-V.

Ah, a do-gooder passing the buck. All Frances himself and the whole bunch of his shrink-colleagues, at least according to himself, have in mind is helping their "patients". At any cost. Even if it means they're rewarded millions of drug company-dollars for their unselfish efforts...

- "To slap on a diagnosis and prescribe a pill would be to reduce the dignity of the life lost and the broken heart left behind. Psychiatry should instead tread lightly and only when it is on solid footing."

Unfortunately (for Frances and his colleagues), there still is no such thing as "solid footing" anywhere in psychiatry, no matter what the diagnosis someone gets, indeed, slapped with, not only reducing but often enough destroying the dignity of the person who gets slapped with it. So, psychiatry shouldn't tread lightly, it shouldn't tread at all - on those who already lie down, with broken hearts. "[L]et us experience the grief [and all other natural human emotion] we need to feel without being called sick," yes, please, Allen Frances and colleagues!

It will seem to me, that Allen Frances is among the growing number of professionals, that includes names like Daniel Carlat and David M. Allen, who are about to become aware - unfortunately not of the fact that his profession isn't helping people in emotional distress, but rather oppressing and harming them, but both of the publicity it can earn you to be critical towards the DSM-V - you may even be able to make friends with a handful of survivors, and as the survivor movement is growing, that certainly wouldn't be a bad thing to happen -, and of the alleviation of feelings of guilt that comes along with being a little, but not too!, critical. A kind of "meta-do-gooderism", and indeed, also this a "no-fault insurance against personal responsibility" ("Didn't I say so? Didn't I warn you?")

Grieving human nature

Gianna posted a piece about the NPR-article "Is Emotional Pain Necessary?"

"They might as well ask do we care to continue being human. This trend of pathologizing pain and making it wrong will be the end of us if we don’t do something to stop it."

I couldn't have written a better comment on the article. I'd just say that running from emotional pain doesn't only limit growth and healing, but in fact does prevent true growth and healing from happening at all, and even makes things worse. We're destroying human nature (= ourselves), and we're not even realizing it, because we're too doped up to feel that we're about to commit emotional suicide.

A couple of thoughts I had, reading the article:

"Kendler points to research showing that people who are doing well two weeks after a loss also seem to be doing well one year later."

What Kenneth Kendler doesn't tell us is whether these people who did well after only two weeks of grieving, got "over it" popping pills, or whether, and more likely, they really got over it, all by themselves. If the latter is true, and I suppose it is, what the studies show is that it actually is healthy to go through intense emotional pain, and process one's loss, and that this process shouldn't be interrupted and suppressed by any kind of - aggressive - "treatment".

" 'I mean, [pain] is a normal consequence of breaking a bone. But that doesn't mean that we don't treat the pain. We treat the pain vigorously,' Zisook says."

The comparison is ridiculous. No one would ask someone who's broken a bone to pop a pain killer, and get on with what they were doing. It would be regarded irresponsible, and in a medical context malpractice, if you didn't do anything, but gave the person who broke their bone a pain killer for it. Nevertheless, this is what psychiatry does, giving people with broken bones a pain killer, and expecting them to get on with what they were doing. Malpractice, indeed.

On another note, the bereavement exclusion, too, IMO is completely ridiculous. "Depression" is mourning and grieving a loss. It is being stuck in mourning and grieving, because you can't name the loss. Just because someone can't instantly name their loss, doesn't mean they haven't lost anything. It means they ought to be helped name their loss.

Get rid of yourself!

I just read the NYTimes-article "Following a Script to Escape a Nightmare" that Gianna links to today:

"Dr. Barrett supports the use of Dr. Krakow’s technique, although she said that ideally the nightmare work should be integrated with psychiatry and behavioral therapies to treat the underlying condition."

For a second I thought: 'Since when does psychiatry or behavioral therapies treat underlying conditions??' before I realized: it says conditions, not problems, or traumas...

Great! Pop some prazosin on top of your psych drug cocktail, Big pHARMa will love you for that, and ask your rat trainer (aka "therapist") to extend the rat training to include your dreams as well. Hopefully it won't take long then, before the true you, your true self, succumbs definitively, and doesn't even bug you in your sleep anymore.

Freudian slip of the month

The Danish media today reported that the "battle against suicide among the mentally ill has been fruitless". Statistically, once every other week a labelled person commits suicide while incarcerated at a psych prison. In spite of, as the media has it, an increased focus on the problem, various plans of action, increased screening for suicidality, and a lot more controlling measures applied to those, who are assessed to be suicidal, the number of suicides at psych prisons has remained stable. "In spite of"??? Well well...

While surfing the net for blog entries about the matter, I came across a post entitled "Kamp mod psykisk syge slår fejl", which translates into "the battle against the mentally ill has been fruitless".

My comment: "While I suppose the choice of words wasn't a conscious one, the title of the post is right on. It is indeed a "battle against the 'mentally ill'" psychiatry (and society) are conducting. Unfortunately though, there's a limit to how fruitless it has been so far. Psychiatry is actually quite efficient, as the unchanged suicide rates suggest."

"Search inside your heart..."

Facebook group "The incarceration of John"

Conference "Recovery: A Human Right"

My YouTube-comment: "What is traumatizing to human nature? The very normal though also very unnatural circumstances, that alienate it from itself. Unfortunately, violence is just all too normal in our culture. Biopsychiatry being a kind of meta-violence, as it violates those, who react to our culture's violence. (...)"

The end of suffering - genes and schizophrenia

This is a post I wrote for Gianna Kali's blog Beyond Meds. I publish it here too, as Gianna's blog has no comment function for now. So, feel free to tear me to pieces. Still, it would be nice if you considered this blog's comment politics...

The end of suffering- genes and schizophrenia

"Det är synd om människorna," is an often quoted line from August Strindberg's A Dream Play. Translated into English, the line becomes: "Human beings are to be pitied," which is a correct literal translation. Nevertheless, it fails to capture the very essence of the Swedish original, and often leads to the misunderstanding that Strindberg intended to say, human beings were to be pitied because of the suffering that is - being human. No, human beings are not to be pitied because their suffering in the world is without comparison, inevitable, and sometimes even endless. They're not to be pitied because of the suffering that is both humanity's greatest challenge and its greatest gift at the same time. There's nothing in nature, human or other, that doesn't serve a purpose. And there's only one purpose: life.

Human beings are to be pitied because they fail to recognize and acknowledge this. Because they have made suffering their worst enemy, whom they fight with all their power and strength. Because they have waged war on nature, not least on their own nature, on themselves, on life. 

That is what Strindberg's line and A Dream Play, which Strindberg himself said was "the child of my greatest pain", as a whole is all about.

The Danish newspaper B.T., a tabloid, ran an article on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009, under the headline "Skizofrene fostre kan sorteres fra" - "Schizophrenic embryos can be screened out".

According to another article at the website of University of Copenhagen, "Genetic Causes of Schizophrenia", a group of European researchers has found chromosomal changes in individuals labelled with "schizophrenia", that they interpret to be the main cause of the "illness". Their research is now granted a fund of additionally 30 million Danish crowns, in part paid by Lundbeck, a Danish pharmaceutical company, specializing in drugs for the "treatment" of "mental illnesses", Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Cipralex/Lexapro is a Lundbeck-product, as is Serdolect, a lesser known "atypical antipsychotic", in part by the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation, and the Danish Medical Research Council.

The additional funding is granted in order for the researchers to develop diagnostic tools, a new generation of drugs, targeting the mutated, "defect" chromosomes, and tools to screen embryos for the chromosome changes in question, so that parents to be can choose an abortion if the embryo shows these chromosome changes. 

The few critical voices that are heard here and there in the media don't go beyond questioning if it is "ethical" to screen out and dispose of embryos, that may or may not actually develop "schizophrenia" later in life, since the researchers admit, that it takes more than the identified mutated chromosomes for the "illness" to manifest. They also have found the specific chromosome changes in individuals who are not labelled, and do not display signs of the "illness", just as they found labelled individuals without the changes. So, basically, the results are not significantly different from what we have seen this kind of research conjure up so many times in the past.

Which obviously is significantly different, increased, once more, is our culture's belief in Social-Darwinism, and eugenic weapons in its war against our existential suffering, against our own nature. Because what the researchers really have found is not the cause of any biological brain disease, but the formal, biological effects of the challenges, humanity faces: social injustice, violence, abuse, exploitation, alienation...

At least since Paul Hammersley and John Read's meta study, we all know, that most people who are labelled with "schizophrenia", are survivors of abuse. And while Hammersley and Read concentrated on physical and sexual abuse, abuse has many faces. Most of what our culture values as "normal" in fact is unnatural, actually alienating us from (our) nature. It is a "toxic mimicry" of nature, to use Derrick Jensen's terminology. To expect our nature to submit to this toxic mimicry without resistance, and deny itself, is a kind of abuse. We're all traumatized by this abuse. It's what the Fall Of Man refers to. No one is innocent.

What we also know by now is that childhood trauma can change both neuronal pathways in the brain and genes. Like all form in this world, also genes react and adapt to the environment they're surrounded and influenced by. The form, our body and also our genes, is always a symbol, a sign, a "symptom", reflecting on a formal level whatever formal, existential, spiritual, psychological, social, etc. challenges we face by reacting to these challenges. A nonreactive entity, if it is a human being, a person, or a single gene, is not fit to survive in this world as it is defenceless exposed to it's destructive abusiveness.

Mutated chromosomes are not the cause of anything. Neither of "schizophrenia". They are a symptom - of the challenges, the social injustice, the abuse, the alienation, the violence and destructiveness we face in this world.

We can try to eliminate our suffering, our reaction to the challenges that surround us, and to gene-manipulate respectively abort humanity into a state of nonreactivity. It will be exactly this, the abortion of humanity. As nonreactive to our environment we will no longer be able to survive. Nonreactivity to the challenges we face will allow this world's destructiveness to unrestrained destroy not only the basis for our biological survival, but, and even worse, since our biological survival depends on it, the basis for our spiritual survival, for the survival of what makes us human: our souls, our suffering souls. We can try. While the researchers, and everybody else, are positive to have found the cause of "schizophrenia", as long as there's one single alive human being left on this earth, they will react to the world. To eliminate existential suffering, we will have to eliminate humanity. Although the Nazis were extremely efficient, murdering people who suffered in the way that is labelled "schizophrenia", although they sterilized everybody whom they did not murder, preventing them from having children, the percentage of people who met the criteria for "schizophrenia" did not decrease in Nazi-Germany. The percentage of Jews did. Remarkably. What does this tell us about the "genetic causes of schizophrenia"?

In the meantime, it nevertheless looks like humanity won't rest until it has not overcome but eliminated suffering by perfectionizing its cultural nightmare's alienation and deadness. It looks like we will eliminate nature, both our own and that around us - and end up perfectly inhumane. The latest research on the "genetic causes of schizophrenia", and the consequences it inevitably will have, is another huge battle won in our war against ourselves, on our way toward a perfectly inhumane world.

So I ask: Is it "ethical" to eliminate life's greatest gift to humanity - humanity itself?

I know, that this is a controversial viewpoint. 'You want people to suffer?!' I hear you, with disbelief. Yes. I want people to suffer. So that they can become aware and conscious. So that they can wake up in the dream, wake up from our cultural nightmare's emotional alienation and deadness. So that they can overcome suffering, realizing that what they thought was their worst enemy in truth is their best friend. So that they can become alive, in the true meaning of the word.

You may accuse me of romanticizing suffering, of being detached from reality, having my head in the clouds. You wouldn't be the first to do so. I'll answer you, that I've suffered myself. Indescribably. And I still do suffer. From being an alive human being. I wouldn't want to trade that for anything in the whole wide world. Suffering isn't a - romantic - accessory to life. It is the incentive necessary to bring about change, to have us keep walking on the road of constant change. And only as long as we keep walking that road are we truly alive. Suffering is not a superfluous accessory to life. There's nothing superfluous, dispensable, in nature. And suffering is natural. It is life.

Need a gift for your shrink?

Check out chapter three of Greg Craven's book What Is The Worst That Could Happen?, download a preview here. What I like about Greg Craven is that he manages to explain things in a way, that even shrinks have a chance to get it. "Research bias for dummies", something. Or: "Why most psychiatric science is junk". This could be the ultimate hate gift for your shrink. Well, right after Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child, that is, which, as someone recently told me, made her shrink exclaim: "Hell, this is the most awful book I've ever read!" and, subsequently, prescribe huge doses of Trilafon to her.

Another reply to Will

Here's another reply to Will at WillSpirit:

My way to union with the great consciousness... I'm still on my way, Will. I haven't arrived there yet. Like you, I've had certain experiences, epiphanies, peak experiences... I've even spent longer periods of time in a state of inner peace. But I've not attained that state of mind once and for all. I know, that such a place exists, because I've been there. But if being there was a constant thing, at least my Danish blog would look a lot different from what it does. Probably also this one, although it usually isn't quite as pugnacious as the Danish one.

This is something, I thought I'd write a post on its own about, but I may as well at least mention it here and now. For a long time, I've felt sort of an obligation to frequently comment on news articles and stuff on my Danish blog. There are no other blogs commenting critically on what's going on specifically in the field of psychiatry in Danish. And surprisingly many people have told me, they have difficulty navigating and reading sites in English or American. The mh system in this country hasn't only a monopoly when it comes to treatment, but also in regard to which information gets out, and which doesn't... To a far greater extent than in English -speaking countries. Go figure...

One aspect of this is that I found myself constantly confronted with lies, prejudice, ignorance, cynicism, ... in short: violence, exhibited by the news articles etc. I had to read in order to comment on them. Another is that the same violence regularly tried to make it to my comment field, respectively made it to my mail inbox. It is toxic, and it is extremely contagious. It goes straight for the ego, and if you don't watch out, the ego will take control and start a war. Especially if you've been a victim of violence before. You can observe it all over the mh blogosphere. Egos trying to get at each other, acting out their personal trauma. And repeating it, over and over again. Guess, who gets hurt...

I'm certainly no saint. I've engaged in several wars lately. Increasingly belligerent. Acting out and repeating past trauma. It gives a very short-lived, superficial satisfaction to make someone one's enemy and bash them, with some scathing irony for instance. But when the moment of satisfaction is over, it does nothing but hurt. And then you need another moment of satisfaction. And another one, and another one... I've actually suffered a whole lot, recently. Enough to have me reconsider the future of my blogs, and my engagement in the mh-debate on the internet in general. That's what suffering is good for. To bring about change.

Well, drugs. Drugs certainly can open some doors. Hallucinogens especially. And they don't altogether have the sedating, deadening effect that neuroleptics have. However, they altogether alienate oneself from oneself to a certain extent. Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiRvnfrs8UM - BTW a channel I recommend, SFJane.

As for me, I didn't have to clear my brain of pharmaceuticals. I spent my youth moving in what you might call "alternative" circles, where natural drugs like marijuana etc. weren't regarded a big problem, while everybody was highly suspicious of any kind of chemicals. In addition, psychoanalytical theories were the thing. I didn't even know, that psychiatry - or rather: the pharmaceutical industry - had come up with a concept of emotional distress being brain diseases, before I saw myself confronted with the "news" in context with my last crisis in 2004. It had always been a matter of fact to me, that whatever the problem, it certainly was a reaction to one's environment. The massive propaganda everywhere of course had me doubt this matter of fact for a while. It just didn't add up, it made no sense. What made sense, was reading Laing's The Divided Self, and what I remembered from Joanne Greenberg's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, which I'd read as a teen.

Well, and then add to that the controlled and oppressed individual's pronounced desire for freedom and self-determination on the one hand, and her just as pronounced suspiciousness towards any authority that tries to take control and oppress on the other. Of course my reaction was: "I alone know what's best for me. No one and nothing messes with my mind but I myself." Luckily, this was respected. So, the only drugs I still will have to clear my brain of are caffeine and nicotine...

I've tried a benzo, once (apart from a suicide attempt that involved valium, but that's a different story). Nasty. Very very nasty. And it would have been even more nasty to experience that amount of loss of control, if it had happened during crisis. That is, during a period of time, where my true self openly rebelled against being controlled and oppressed. - Does psychiatric "treatment" worsen "symptoms"? It certainly does. Maybe not always, but often enough. Involuntary "treatment" by definition.

Last but not least, I was sort of intuitively convinced, that taking anything to numb out the pain would be extremely counterproductive, as I was determined as hell to find out, what the meaning was. And how were I supposed to figure out the meaning, when the pain was gone?


"A major objection to the use of the anti-psychotic drugs in acute crisis situations is that because they are such powerful central nervous system suppressants they may well have the effect of preventing crisis resolution. They are powerful enough to abort a psychological process, which if supported and understood, would resolve itself in the context of a relationship," Loren Mosher says here. 

The "symptoms" I experienced were indeed signposts, that showed me, clearly and unmistakably, whenever I was on the right track, trying to figure out what had caused what was going on. Without having them show me the way, the whole therapeutic process would have been a grope in the dark, unlikely to lead anywhere, since I was the only one who had the answers to all of my questions. In spite of what many people seem to expect, therapists obviously aren't there to know and tell their clients all the answers. Their only task is to suggest different angles from which to look at the questions, so that one of these angles hopefully may reveal the answer.

Numbing "symptoms" with neuroleptics leaves the client dependent on the therapist coming up with the answers, which actually is, what I see happen all over the place. - A Norwegian blog-neighbour of mine once was told by her therapist: "You know, the problem with you is that you resist being formed." Of course, my Norwegian blog-neighbour did the only reasonable thing, and ended the relationship with this "therapist". - Very convenient for society. But it won't do for the client, as it doesn't provide anything but, at best, just another false ego-identification.

So, in fact I embraced my "symptoms", because I knew, they were showing me the way out of my suffering.

I understand, that not everybody at any time has the opportunity to do as I did. The circumstances were without doubt in my favor. I had the space around me, that allowed me to "freak out" whenever I needed to, and I had someone, who supported me (almost) unconditionally. Most people unfortunately don't have that today. But that does far from mean, that they shouldn't have it. If I say, drugs are okay to use, I indirectly approve of the current paradigm of "care". I can't do that.

Basically, what I would like people to realize is that it doesn't matter what kind of label, how "serious" the problem, drugs simply aren't the answer, other than as a very short-term emergency solution, and never against the will of the person in crisis. I'd like to see the very common misconception eradicated, that there would be people, whose suffering is too severe to be met other than by (massive and long-term) drugging. There aren't. Everybody has the potential to recover, and no one should ever be prevented from it. Actually, it is often those, who suffer the most, and who seem to be "lost cases", who make the most remarkable recoveries. Given they get the right support. Because their extreme suffering also means an extreme incentive to change, and extremely clear signposts on the way to change. This is, what I reacted the most to in your initial post. That some people would need to be drugged. They don't. This, and the idea that all someone would be able to achieve, was learning to live with a chronic illness. It is not a chronic illness.

Compared to what is perceived as "normal" - and "normal" does not equal to "natural", "normal", in contrast to "natural", is a cultural construct - I certainly have "issues", still today. I'm still sensitive to noise, "noisy" visual perceptions, I still hear voices, I haven't abandoned but re-interpreted my "delusions". Does that make me an ill person? I don't think so. I think, it actually makes me more natural, so to speak, than I would be if I were perfectly adjusted to our normality. To me it's a strength, not an illness. Although it also is a lot more challenging to live in our "normal" and increasingly alienated from (human) nature world, and be naturally sensitive, than I imagine it to be for someone, who's sufficiently alienated from their own human nature and nature in general to be regarded well-adjusted to society, I wouldn't want to trade off that sensitivity for any amount of well-adjustment. I wouldn't want to trade off my true self, my true nature, for just another false ego-identification, that inevitably would lead to crisis again and again. In the end, if people think, I'm "weird" because I hug a tree, or have conversations with garden spiders, that's their problem, not mine.

I do understand and respect people who choose long-term medication when indeed they don't have a choice. That people aren't given a choice, is what I can't and won't condone.

More thoughts about The Doctor Who Hears Voices - a reply to WillSpirit

In reply to WillSpirit's post on The Doctor Who Hears Voices, and his comment on my previous post:

First of all I want to make clear that I'd never ever judge someone for their decision to take psych drugs, or to identify - partly or entirely - with a psych label. Who I at times can't altogether resist to judge, are definitely not the people, who resort to psychiatry/the mh system for help, but psychiatry/the mh system itself. That's a huge difference, although experience has shown me, that a lot of people aren't aware of it, and feel, I'm criticizing them, when in fact I'm critizing psychiatry/the mh system (oh , and our civilization in general... ).

Of course I can't know this for sure, since I don't know "Ruth" other than from what the documentary reveals about her, from her comment on my blog, and, indirectly, from what I understand Rufus May stands for, but my impression is, that she herself doesn't necessarily identify as "psychiatrically disordered". I suspect, that if she'd done so, she'd either never asked Rufus for help in the first place, or she'd abandoned therapy with him rather sooner than later, to return regretfully to the mh system's Trevor Turners - and their drugs.

Now you'll probably argue, that she hears a voice, and that hearing voices is a "symptom" of "mental illness", so she must be "psychiatrically disordered". Well, yes indeed, she hears a voice. But so do we all, psychiatrically labelled or not. All our thinking is conditioned. Thoughts are always without exception a reaction to the world we live in. You might say, they're echoing this world's noise. That's why meditation seeks the stillness beyond any thought, beyond the noise of this world, that is. In our thoughts we find the world, its noise, its voice, in the stillness we find ourselves.

If you look at it from that perspective, hearing voices actually becomes a sign of awakening to the truth rather than a symptom of a disorder. And indeed, in certain cultures it is regarded a gift, not a burden. A gift it is, if the person who hears voices happens to live in a society, that isn't afraid to hear the echo of its own voice, that isn't afraid to face not only its own greatness, but also its own flaws, which is what the voices of a person who hears voices usually echo. The flaws. The bullying, the abusiveness, the exploitativeness, the violence, the inhumanity.

Hearing voices then is a gift, because it asks for changes to be made. Changes for the benefit of all members of the society.

Meanwhile, our modern, western civilization is stuck with the delusion, that all there is to it is greatness. No flaws. Nothing needs to be changed. We are the crown of creation. Well, our modern, western civilization is. Take a look around. What do you see? Self-satisfaction, arrogance, self-righteousness... And underneath fear. Of change. So, how then can we explain (away) phenomena, that question and undermine our delusion of grandeur? Of course! As being flaws themselves. Individual flaws. Disorders. The "disorder" is no longer society's, but the individual's. And to perform this task of silencing the echo, our civilization created the myth of "mental illness", and the institution of psychiatry.

I must admit, that I sometimes can be a bit tough, and say: "All right, be my guest, buy into it if you think so. But then you'll have to live with the consequences." Which usually are, that you'll be society's scapegoat, that you will be discriminated against, more or less. But I also know, that it often isn't a conscious choice, that leads to people buying into it. And unless it is a conscious choice, I can't really be that tough without becoming guilty of the same "crime" I accuse society of.

Well, the question of course is, why some people react to the extent, "Ruth" does, or I myself for that sake, and others not. Isn't that proof, that these people must be biologically different,somehow really disordered? I think the answer is, that some people are exposed to the flaws of the society they live in to a greater extent, earlier in life, and for longer periods of time than others. Which can make them biologically different, more sensitive towards society's flaws, than others, as recent research indicates. Still, that doesn't make genetic anomalies the cause of the phenomena.

And what about all the other "symptoms"? What about "paranoia", or "mania", or "depression", or "ADHD", or you name it? Different kinds of echoes, reflections. How someone reacts in detail depends on what they learned how to react. Non-genetic, familiar heredity. For even if recent research also indicates, that trauma causes changes in a person's genes, changes that may be passed on to this person's children, genes do not act independent from their environment, but they react to it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be likely for people who were labelled with "schizophrenia", or "bipolar disorder", or whatever, and who made a recovery like "Ruth" did, by making unconscious content conscious, to have and raise children, who don't get labelled. I don't know of any of these people, who have children, that their children would qualify for any psych label. But, unfortunately, I know of a number of people, who still are stuck in unconsciousness, whose children do have problems, they too. It's a law of nature, that trauma, that isn't made conscious, is passed on to the next generation.

As for drugs: There are different ways to deal with crisis. Mind-altering drugs suppress "symptoms". What they target is a person's consciousness reducing it. There is no drug, that could target the unconscious. So, the voices are still there, echoing the world. The person just doesn't realize anymore. In fact, many people eventually tell their psychiatrist, that they don't hear voices anymore, even though they do. Because they're fed up with side effects, and know from experience that, if they say they still hear voices, all their shrink will do is up their dose... But well, let's say, it works for someone. What is the result? Stabilization. Not balance, but stabilization. That is, the absence of any possibility for development, personal growth, transformation... Indeed, exactly what our civilization in general aims at: maintaining the status quo, keeping it stable.

While death is a symbol for transformation, and thus not the opposite but part of life, stability is a synonym for the absence of change and of the possibility for transformation. It's a synonym for deadness, which indeed is the opposite of life.

On the other end of the (sliding) scale you have the change, the personal growth, the becoming (more) conscious through experiencing crisis with your eyes wide open, that Ann-Louise Silver talks about in the clip from Take These Broken Wings.

Now, our society expects a certain, actually growing, amount of deadness, of stable functioning, and it conditions everybody to regard stability the ultimate bliss. So, I can't blame anyone, who takes drugs, which they are told, will provide them with stability, our civilization's ultimate bliss.

However, life is constant transformation, it's constantly seeking for perfection: through self-transcendence and enlightenment, seeking to achieve a state of pure consciousness. It's a human need. But it is also unproductive in regard to our consumer-society. And while existential suffering in itself is a precondition for change to take place, and thus part of the human experience, not an illness, our civilization adds another dimension of suffering to the initial, existential suffering in that it stigmatizes and discriminates against everybody who experiences life, who experience being (human), trying to force these people back into blissful unconsciousness, that only is endurable on mind-numbing drugs, that alienate the person from her (suffering and rebelling) true self.

So, if someone is offered the chance to be supported in following their true self's call, why wouldn't they choose to do so? Why would or should they choose the dead end in preference to The Way? And I'm not even talking about the physically disabling side effects of psych drugs...

In short, I don't think there is any such thing as "mental illness". In my opinion "mental illness" is a cultural construct, created in order to pathologize the lesser productive, and society's delusion of grandeur disturbing, aspects of the human experience. To me, the concept is an assault on (human) nature. And I think, as long as there is no scientific evidence to prove it correct, no one should be labelled.

Last but not least, I don't think, "Ruth" has any higher risk of experiencing crisis again, than anybody else has. I think, she's very aware of herself, her limits included, and probably somewhat better prepared than people, who've never experienced extreme states of mind, if ever anything should happen in her life, that has the potential to trigger crisis. So, I don't think, anyone needs to be more concerned about her emotional well-being than about that of others.

HOME

Until June 14th you can watch Yann Arthus-Bertrand's film HOME on YouTube. HOME is a fascinating film about life on this planet, and about the devastating impact that our civilization has on it.

I don't quite agree to the film's conclusion. Technology has brought us into the situation we are in today. I don't believe, it will save us. Apart from that, I don't think it is five minutes to twelve, but five minutes past. Yah, I believe, it's "game over" as far as civilization is concerned. Has been so right from the start.

Anyhow, watch the film!

DSM - First edition, 1669

(Can't help it. I'm just in that mood today.)

Linguistic alienation

Have a look at this. Not the contents, but the form. And compare it to the post itself. Rickey Gillespie's comment perfectly illustrates what I mean, when I talk about alienating terminology. This guy isn't even capable of commenting in plain English on a post, that is written in plain English. I wonder, how he communicates with his wife, kids, friends, whoever. "Apis-regurgitated nectar, could you please get me a sodium carbonate-calcium oxide enriched silica container of brewed and fermented malted hordeum vulgare grains comorbid with humulus lupulus strobiles"? "I wonder what the etiology of the F 51.5 (307.47 in the DSM) I had last night could be"? Probably...

Reminds me of someone on a discussion forum: "They told me my diagnosis today. F 25.9 (that's 295.7 in the DSM, yah...). Does anyone here know, what that means?"

Offret

Intro to and clip from Andrei Tarkovsky's Offret - The Sacrifice, one of the most extraordinary films of all times:





Full version of J.S. Bach, Erbarme dich mein Gott (Have mercy, Lord my God), performed by Julia Hamari here.

Hat tip to Abysmal Musings.

Random thoughts about being disabled - NOT

A couple of thoughts in the wake of Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st, 2009.

1. I haven't been round reading tons of entries on the subject, but a few I have read, and Alison Hymes'Psychophobia 201 was definitely the best I've come across.

2. There's a lot of talk about disability and disablism, also in regard to people with emotional problems. Here for example is a YouTuber, Mary Van Pelt, who does some awesome vids against disablism in work places.

Another aspect is the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, whose wording also was fundamentally influenced by user/ex-user/survivor organizations like MindFreedom.

I very much appreciate the effort both individual persons like Alison Hymes and Mary Van Pelt, and organizations like MindFreedom put into raising awareness about discrimination against and the rights of people in emotional distress. Nevertheless, I have a problem with the overall concept, the overall idea, that people in emotional distress are described as "disabled". Which is that I don't regard emotional distress a disability. Consequently, I myself do not identify as disabled.



While it is true, that I probably would have an extremely hard time coping, get stressed out in no time, and experience emotional trouble, if I had to work under 9 to 5-ordinary job circumstances, I know quite a few "normal" people, who would have just as hard a time, who certainly wouldn't be happy, if they had to make a living under the same circumstances I make mine: working early mornings and late evenings, working weekends and holidays, working outside, regardless the weather, being on "stand-by" 24/7, and handling horses. Does that make these people disabled? If someone ended up with some kind of emotional distress doing the job I do, let's say because they're afraid of or simply don't like horses, is that a disability then?

People often ask me, if my job isn't very hard work, and how I manage doing it without getting run down. Yes, it is hard work. It is physically demanding. On the other hand, it isn't more demanding than being a hunter-gatherer or a pastoral nomad, which is, what human beings are by their very nature. Indeed, I'd say, my job is a lot closer to (human) nature, and a lot less alienating than most of the work situations, modern western civilization expects human beings to cope with. Does it make me disabled, that my human nature rebels against a maybe "normal" but nevertheless unnatural way of living?

Well, of course it makes me disabled in the eyes of an alienated and alienating, and in fact disabled and disabling, culture. While I myself regard it an ability of mine, that my nature is capable of reacting - rebellious - to unnatural demands and situations. And I'd definitely prefer not having to resort to the CRPD, but simply to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in order to have my human rights respected in any given situation. In my opinion it is a human rights violation in itself, that the latter doesn't protect my human rights in these given situations.

Last but not least, let's face it: which actually does disable the vast majority of people with "psychiatric disabilities" isn't the emotional distress itself. It is the "treatment", the punishment, they receive for rebelling against unnatural, disabling life situations. So, "psychiatric disability" isn't that misleading a term anyway: disabled by psychiatry.

Don't

Three video clips about the real violence - and some thoughts about delusions.







Something I notice, again and again, is that more often than not it is people, who've experienced the violence close up themselves, who've experienced it in a very concentrated form, who achieve an awareness and an understanding of it, like Derrick Jensen or R.D. Laing for instance have achieved it.

It really seems, that one has to get to a point where it becomes unbearable, before one has the courage to let go of all the delusions and to face reality. And the more I think abut it, the more it seems to me, that working in the mh system actually is the ultimate protection against having to face reality and having to let go of the delusions. Unconsciously as close to enlightenment as one possibly can get without actually achieving it. And at the same time, consciously, light years away from it. The ultimate insanity: normality.

Are psychologists really that stupid?

...Or do they just pretend to be??

Monday evening I came across an article, Aida Husejinovic, "Kognitiv remediation ved skizofreni" (Cognitive remediation for schizophrenia), Psykolog Nyt (the magazine of the Danish Psychological Association), no. 3, p. 20 - 27, where psychologist Aida Husejinovic writes:

"Even if Emil Kraepelin already a hundred years ago became aware of the fact, that cognitive dysfunctionalities are remarkable in patients with schizophrenia, this aspect was assumed to be a side effect of the medication for a long time. Yet, newer evidence points to that cognitive dysfunctionality is a core aspect of the illness, and characteristic for most of the patients." (Op.cit., p. 20)

And further down: "Dysfunctionalities in concentration and memory are regarded biological markers of schizophrenia, since they are detectable long before the onset of the illness, and can be observed in family members of patients with schizophrenia." (Op.cit., p. 20/21)

'There we have it,' I think, looking at this "argumentation" in favor of the biological model. 'The cart put before the horse.' Just as Mary Boyle for instance describes it in her article "The problem with diagnosis", The Psychologist, vol. 20, part 5, May 2007, p. 290 - 292. - An excellent article, by the way, that can only be recommended.

It is totally and completely beyond me how a psychologist can miss the point, that stress, stress, yeah, like in trauma, indeed has the capacity to reduce the stressed individual's cognitive abilities. Dysfunctional communication and abuse create stress. And thus cognitive dysfunctionalities in addition. Which is true for all involved individuals, also family members, who aren't labelled, but who nevertheless do practice dysfunctional behaviors. And it is especially true for individuals who are labelled with "schizophrenia", and who usually have been exposed to huge amounts of stress-creating dysfunctionality. Often throughout their entire childhood and adolescence.

I'd like to see to which extent Aida Husejinovic herself would be able to mobilize her cognitive abilities in a test-situation, where, during the very same testing, someone pointed a gun at her, threatening to shoot her at the first wrong answer she gave. For, this is approximarely the stress level you live with in a dysfunctional, abusive relationship.

In conflict with what Aida Husejinovic seems to regard an almost indisputable basis for her reflections about the cognitive abilities of "patients with schizophrenia", there is increasing evidence from newer research that points to so-called "schizophrenia" being a kind of post traumatic stress reaction. Not a biological brain disease. Cf. Paul Hammersley and John Read's meta study, for example. - But one looks in vain for this kind of references in the article. While, on the other hand, a whole lot of neuro- and biobiobiopsychiatric literature is listed. Of course.

Again I want to emphasize that, while Hammersley and Read - and similar studies - conclude that trauma "only" in about 70 per cent of the cases is demonstrable, they do not take other than physical/sexual abuse into account, thus leaving out verbal and purely psychological abuse, that can "hurt as much as sexual abuse". Furthermore, as they mention themselves, they were not in all investigated cases successful in establishing proof of abuse, because a number of psychiatrized individuals were never asked about their life story by staff. - According to the motto: "Don't ask a question, you know beforehand, you'll not like the answer to!"

Well, and if one wants it even more clearly, just compare the diagnostic criteria for "schizophrenia" with those for PTSD - and get surprised at the resemblance. The difference mainly being that individuals, who get labelled with "schizophrenia" often don't remember the experiences that were traumatizing to them, that they don't remember these experiences as traumatizing, and/or that the environment quite easily can deny the experiences. How convenient! For the abusers.

As Mary Boyle has it so to the point in her above mentioned article: "All scientists aim to identify patterns, or meaningful relationships, in whatever they study. But no aspiring science has ever been successful by asserting at the outset what kinds of patterns it will observe and retaining this belief in the face of decades of unsuccessful research. Yet this is exactly what has happened in psychiatric diagnosis."

Bias has never been the basis for anything but indifference. While indifference is the perfect protection for the abuser.

And apart from the fact that obviously also psychologists, and not just psychiatrists, are big time indifferent toward abuse - in order to protect the abuser-society we live in - they also - for the same reason - are indifferent toward neuroscience. It is no longer an assuption, but a well-proven fact, that neuroleptics cause brain shrinkage in the frontal lobes, the region of the brain where cognition is located. The region of the brain that makes us human beings. The chemical lobotomy. Exactly.

Maybe it is about time for psychology to consider its position in our civilization's war against (human) nature, and state clearly if it is on his clientele's or the abusers' side? Maybe it is about time for psychology to face and recognize the own inner abuser, who speaks so loud and clearly from Aida Husejinovic's article? As is well known, acceptance is the basis for transformation.

"Us and them", yes. But as Derrick Jensen suggests, it isn't us, the critics, who want a "us and them"-situation. It is psychiatry - and obviously psychology with it - that makes individuals in crisis their enemies.
_______________

And yes, my own cognitive abilities almost equalled to zero during the approximately six weeks the acute crisis lasted. Because I was far too occupied with what was going on deep inside myself to have the least energy to care for - compared - trivialities such as spelling, arithmetic, or any other everyday insignificance. On the other hand, my cognitive abilities have never been more functioning than today. Because I was given the chance to become aware and conscious, and come to terms with the abuse, I've experienced. Because this meant, that I eventually could relax. And because I wasn't chemically lobotomized.
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I sent Aida Husejinovic a link to the Danish version of this post. She's read it. Several times. She has not replied to me. I contemplate to send the link to the magazine's editors, too.

"Is it time for ISPS to remove the term 'schizophrenia' from its name?"

Some more thoughts about the ISPS, and about diagnoses, human nature and power imbalances in our egocentric culture.

So, looking at the ISPS Denmark, basically, what have we got? A semi-professional* organization, who, in spite of what its name might suggest, doesn't really regard psychological treatments as having the potential to, successfully replace medical treatment of extreme states of mind, but merely sees these psychological interventions as a means to get people, successfully, hooked on psych drugs. For life.

The Danish - and obviously also the Swedish - group consists, as I say in a comment at Gianna's blog, of a bunch of drug pushers, whose aim it is, to consolidate the "patients' " compliance to the drug "treatment" by massive indoctrination. Which, in their terminology becomes "dialogue". Well, yes, as a matter of fact and undeniably it is a good thing to know at least the basics of psychology if you want to make your indoctrination as efficient as possible. It's called "mind control", and, yes, it has got everything to do with psychology.
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The ISPS' central, international organization recently launched "Psychosis", a journal with articles related to psychological treatment options for extreme states of mind. The table of contents reflects two things:

1. the wide range of - fundamentally - different views on so-called "psychosis" inside the ISPS, and

2., as I point out in a comment on Gianna's post on the journal, and especially on one - great! - article featured in its first issue, the power balance between the labelling and the labelled. Or maybe I should say: the somewhat grotesque power imbalance between those two groups. Again, we here have a medium, that chooses to give about 90% of its space to professionals theorizing about the experience, and about those, who have/had it.

Well, at least it seems, it's not 100%... And, and this is really groundbreaking!, the journal doesn't advertise. No Zyprexa, Risperdal, Seroquel, or whatever else ads. Incredible! Congrats on that one, ISPS!

But - no, I'm not finished with you guys! - the journals name is "Psychosis". What exactly is "psychosis"? Let me tell you:

"Psychosis" is, just as any other psych label, the Establishment's - unfortunately widely successful - attempt to pathologize human nature - in favor of the culture represented and promoted by the Establishment.

Most people aren't aware of the fact, that natural does not equal to normal. Be sure, it so doesn't! Actually, the more our culture moves away from what is natural, the less these two adjectives do equal. Thus, driving a car is completely normal, although it isn't the least natural. It's a cultural phenomenon. It is judged by cultural norms and values as being normal.

While in nature things just are, or are not, without becoming judged, in culture things become measured and judged by the at any time given cultural norms and values. So, the things that in nature just are, in culture become normal, or abnormal, worthy, or unworthy, good, or bad (mad??), etc. And the more a culture moves away from nature, the more things it measures and judges in this way. And the more rigorously it divides normal from abnormal, worthy from unworthy, good from bad, etc .

It is the ego that makes us cultural beings, in addition to being natural beings. It is the ego that needs to measure and judge, in order to delimit itself from the oneness, that nature is, in order to define itself as a unique individual. Or as a unique, individual culture. And when the ego rules, as it does in an ego-centered culture like our modern, western civilization, it will do everything imaginable to make the distinction between itself and the other as pronounced as possible. It will do everything imaginable to alienate the individual from its human nature, from the oneness with nature in general.

For instance by judging perfectly natural phenomena as abnormal. Or as strange, like in "alienation" (i.e. distinction, or split, schizm, like in "schizophrenia" - who is really "schizophrenic" here???) - from nature.

While anyone can relate to and identify with (identification = oneness) emotions and states of mind like anger, fear, confusion or joy, and quite easily can understand for instance "extreme confusion", because they've experienced confusion themselves, it gets a whole lot more difficult, if not impossible, to relate to, identify with, and thus to understand "schizophrenia" or "psychosis".

While anger, fear, confusion, joy etc. are viewed as normal by our culture, the extremes of these emotions aren't described as lying end to end with, and as, indeed, being basically the same in their nature as the as normal judged intensity of these same emotions, but as diametrically opposed to it, as abnormal, strange, unintelligible, pathologic, sick. And in order to ram this home, in order to cement it in people's perception, the extremes got renamed. With pathologizing labels. "Psychosis". Meaning: not to be understood. Or: meaningless. While it is our nature to always and in everything look for meaning, for oneness, our culture has created the ultimate tool to alienate us from our own nature by creating the concept of "mental illness" (i.e. meaningless behavior, thoughts and emotions) to describe our own nature with.

"Is it time for ISPS to remove the term "schizophrenia" from its name?" Well, that depends. It depends on whether we, humanity as a whole, want to continue on our egos' and culture's path of increasing alienation from (our own) nature, on our egos' and culture's path of regression**, deeper and deeper into unconsciousness, or if we can overcome this culture's narcissism, realizing and accepting that there is nothing strange, meaningless, nothing "schizophrenic" or "psychotic" to (human) nature. Realizing and accepting that we all just are.
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As my above jottings show, removing the term "schizophrenia" from ISPS' name, and replacing it with another pathologizing label, won't do. The problem is, that, basically, what my train of thought leads to is, that neither a medical nor any other degree actually qualifies anyone to guide another individual through and out of extreme states of mind. That which qualifies someone for this task is only and solely being in touch with, and conscious of their own human nature, their true self.
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* Membership is open both for professionals and non-professionals.

** Note the parallel to what is described as a "schizophrenic" mechanism.

Self-actualization is a disease

If you haven't heard it yet: HealthCentral has bought Wellsphere. As I commented on Gianna's blog, I'm just glad, I didn't take the bite!!!

Well, since I couldn't remember to ever have visited HealthCentral's website, I went there tonight to have a look at it - I became even more glad, I didn't join Wellsphere - and came across a very interesting article.

Obviously, if ever you get into a situation where you'd need to reconsider your life, your identity, your being in this world, for instance because you were traumatized and thus didn't get the chance to establish a secure relationship with your true self, forget about ever being given the chance! Your self-reflections, your "focus on the self", aiming at healing and becoming more whole, are symptoms of a brain disease.

"Whitfield-Gabrieli found that in the schizophrenia patients, the default system was both hyperactive and hyperconnected during rest, and it remained so as they performed the memory tasks. In other words, the patients were less able than healthy control subjects to suppress the activity of this network during the task. Interestingly, the less the suppression and the greater the connectivity, the worse they performed on the hard memory task, and the more severe their clinical symptoms.

'We think this may reflect an inability of people with schizophrenia to direct mental resources away from internal thoughts and feelings and toward the external world in order to perform difficult tasks,' Whitfield-Gabrieli explained."

And what is, essentially, the big problem with "focussing on the self" and "an inability of people with schizophrenia to direct mental resources away from internal thoughts and feelings and toward the external world in order to perform difficult tasks"?

Yeah well, first of all, you might find out, that you actually were a victim of mistreatment and/or abuse, and secondly, it's unlikely that you will be a good consumer while your focus is directed toward your "internal thoughts and feelings" instead of "toward the external world in order to perform difficult tasks," like consuming...

Philosophizing about yourself, your self, discovering abusive mechanisms in your own upbringing and in the world you're living in, and failing to be a good consumer is undesirable as it is a disease. So, go and get an appointment with a shrink, so you at least can be a good consumer in regard to the mental illness industry and Big Pharma!

Strokes of insight and blind spots

Yesterday, I watched the webcast of Oprah Winfrey's Soul Series-interview with Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. In her Soul Series-interview with Eckhart Tolle, Oprah calls him a "prophet", and I agree to that, although it, of course, again, is a label, a concept, and in certain contexts can be applied to diminish a human being to an object - of disdain.

Unfortunately, prophets continuously throughout history have been misunderstood. In "the right belief's" favour. One might think, that this would be difficult in regard to a "message", that just exactly says, that essentially there is no right or wrong, thus neither a right or wrong belief. A "message" that says that the only truth is found nowhere else but beyond any such thing as a conceptual belief-system, if it's called "Christianity", "Buddhism", "Socialism", "Neo-liberalism",..., or, well, "biological psychiatry". While the need to label, to conceptualize, is an egoic (narcissistic) one, that does nothing but inflicts harm and suffering both on the labeller and the labelled. A need, that devalues both of them, turns them into objects (of disdain), and in the end inevitably destroys them.

Being the inevitable result of the human mind's compulsion to conceptualize, judge (morally) and label, all wars in human history confirm this. You can only disrespect others to the annihilating point, war is a manifestation of, if you don't respect yourself. You can only disrespect anyone or anything to such an annihilating point, if you don't respect yourself.

Apart from the obvious wars, that are going on, in Iraq and Afghanistan for instance, there are wars going on worldwide, that are not always recognized as such: humanity's war against nature, against the planet Earth, as well as all those against all kinds of minorities: human beings fighting human beings.

As I see it, we're frighteningly fast moving toward a situation, where everyone fights everyone, in a more or less obviously war-like situation. Or, as Eckhart Tolle puts it, never before in human history has man inflicted greater suffering on his fellow human beings.

One of the wars that are going on is the war against people who experience extreme states of mind, people who are labelled "mentally ill". And especially in this war's context, I can't but think of the quote "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". I don't doubt this war's soldiers' good intentions. I don't doubt Jill Bolte Taylor's not only good but best intentions. Unfortunately, they are the result of a profound misunderstanding of a prophet like Eckhart Tolle's "messages". Good intentions are almost always the good intentions of an Ego. The parallel to psychoanalyst Wolfgang Schmidbauer's "helper syndrome" as rooted in what with an analytic term is called "narcissism" is striking. Thus neither Eckhart Tolle fails to mention the myth of Narcissus when he talks about the human Ego.

Jill Bolte Taylor is the president of NAMI Greater Bloomington Area, an affiliate of NAMI Indiana. The website of NAMI Indiana states as "Mental Illness Facts" among other things, that "severe and persistent Mental Illnesses are brain disorders (...) [that] cannot be overcome through will power and are not related to a person's (...) upbringing nor his/her age, race, religion or economic status". Further it is stated, that "[e]arly identification and treatment accelerates recovery and protects the brain from further harm related to the course of the illness. (...) Most people with serious mental illness require medication...". All these statements are, put forward as facts, simply lies.

Jill Bolte Taylor, author of the book "My Stroke of Insight", is a neurologist, specialized in brain research in regard to "mental illness". She is also known as "the Singin' Scientist", lobbying for people, especially those labelled with "mental illnesses" and their relatives, to donate their brains post mortem to research.

Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a stroke in 1996, that affected her left brain hemisphere, thus forcing on her the experience of having no Ego. An experience that lead her to a deeper insight into the aspects of human nature, our modern, western society usually suppresses.

The interview on Soul Series gave me the impression of a highly conscious and compassionate human being. Nevertheless, it also left me somewhat disillusioned. There obviously are limits to insight, consciousness, and compassion, even for people, who not only have read "A New Earth", but also themselves have experienced what Jill Bolte Taylor calls "Nirvana". There obviously are limits, and, just as obviously, misinterpretation is possible.

It seems to me, that the blind spot is due to Dr. Taylor's brother being labelled with "schizophrenia". The same blind spot that is obvious in regard to Edwin Fuller Torrey.

If Eckhart Tolle ever had asked the very same mental health system, Jill Bolte Taylor advocates for, for help, he would undoubtedly have been given a label of "severe depression with suicidal tendencies", he would immediately have been put on an antidepressant, he maybe even would have qualified for ECT, and we would neither have "The Power of Now", "A New Earth", nor any other of his prophetic writings today.

I couldn't help it, all enlightenment disregarded, my own Ego won, and I had to share my impressions with the interviewee, just as I share them here - I still have a long way to go, trying to find a less egoic form for activism, I know that!
Here, however, is what a truly enlightened human being has to say about psychiatry:

"...Restoring mental health does not mean simply adjusting individuals to the modern world of rapid economic growth. The world is ill, and adapting to an ill environment cannot bring real mental health. Psychiatric treatment requires environmental change and psychiatrists must participate in efforts to change the environment, but that is only half the task. The other half is to help individuals be themselves, not by helping them adapt to an ill environment, but by providing them with the strength to change it. To tranquilize them is not the way. The explosion of bombs , the burning of napalm, the violent death of our neighbors and relatives, the pressure of time, noise, and pollution, the lonely crowds-these have all been created by the disruptive course of our economic growth. They are all sources of mental illness, and they must be ended." (Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist peace activist, The Path of Compassion, 1995. Quotation: Freedom Center)

Find the Soul Series-interviews for free on iTunes.