The colonized changed their mind in regard to the "Bedre vilkår" ("Bedre vilkår for sindslidende": better conditions for the mentally ill - I still cringe at "mentally ill", but, well...) -initiative, and so did I. The demand for more beds at psych wards was replaced by a demand for more 24-hour-places at facilities like safe houses, which meant that I could support all 12 demands, sign the petition, and join the organization group for the demo and pre-hearing, that both took place on March 5th at Copenhagen.
Miki, the initiator of the event, asked me to do the keynote address at the pre-hearing, and to my fright I heard myself agree to it. It had been a while since I'd talked to a larger audience. Well, I survived (obviously), and here's the address:
I want to open the pre-hearing today with a short survey of the history of psychiatry, and some reflections about what I think, should be concluded from this history.
Until the mid 1700s the "mentally ill" were simply locked up whenever they became too tiresome for society. Just as offenders were. And since many "mentally ill" do have trouble to express their needs, emotions etc. clearly and understandable, they weren't considered to have any, and were, in consequence, treated worse than animals: no proper food, no heat in winter etc. Many, of course, died under these circumstances.
About the mid 1700s the medical profession became aware of, that this maybe was a group in the population, that the profession possibly could make capital out of - via the relatives, and maybe use for a further raising of the medical profession's profile - by being able to cure even "mentally ill", not only physically ill people.
All the same, the "cures" of those days were still evidently characterized by the fact, that the "mentally ill" before had been regarded a kind of offenders: still people were locked up, and punished respectively tortured, e.g. by drowning and reviving them, drenching them with ice-cold water, placing them on fast-rotating seats and tables, giving them emetics until they were no longer able to see out of their eyes with nausea, and bled on a large scale in order to weaken them, and so on.
Altogether in order to frighten them out of their wits, in the hope that the mortal dread would make them behave well again. Fundamentally the same philosophy that the penal system is based upon: Behave, or otherwise...
Also in those days, many died from the "treatment". Among others an English Quaker-woman, Hannah Mills, in 1791.
The Quakers never had any greater trust in the medical profession, the modern western in general, and Hannah Mills death under medical care was the final straw.
The Quakers decided not to expose their own to psychiatry anymore, but instead to take care of community members in crisis themselves, according to their own philosophy taken from Aeschylus: "Soft speech is to distemper'd wrath, medicinal." Their first retreat opened in England in 1796. This was the beginning of which later on came to be termed "moral treatment".
The Quakers were convinced that manageable settings, that is small sized retreats, situated in areas of natural beauty, providing good, even luxury facilities and food, and kind, respectful and understanding care were the best help for people in crisis.
Staff members who hit or just talked disrespectfully to a "patient" were immediately dismissed. Staff and "patients" both had their meals together, and were equally participating in the large variety of activities provided. While participation, of course, was 100% voluntary.
The "moral treatment" of the Quakers, that can be compared to Laing's Kingsley Hall, Loren Mosher's Soteria, and similar alternatives to psychiatry, had enormous treatment-successes - 80 - 90% recovery, the same as Soteria, the Vestlaplandsmodellen and the like - and "moral treatment" spread fast, both in Europe and the U.S.
BUT: while it in the beginning was a pure Quaker-domaine, the spread meant the single countries' governments to enter the picture.
The Quakers had chosen to do without any involvement of the medical profession at their help for people in crisis. No medical doctor was employed by them. After all, it was a medical doctor who had Hannah Mills' life on his conscience.
Different from the Quakers, the single countries' governments had no objections against medical doctors. Which the latter knew to take advantage of, since they'd been looking at the Quakers' "moral treatment" with increasing concern: it deprived them of a lucrative source of revenue.
So, medical doctors started to apply for jobs at the newly established institutions under governmental management - and got these jobs. In order to legitimate their involvement as DOCTORS, they took the Quakers' idea, that people in crisis simply went through a process that was mentally exhausting, fraying their nerves, and interpreted this metaphor literally as physically frayed nerves.
The biological model, the physically frayed nerves, legitimated medical, physical "treatment" measures to again be applied, in addition to the Quakers' purely moral, humane help: again people were exposed to various "treatment" measures similar to punishment and torture.
The recovery rates dropped proportionally to purely humane help being replaced by medical "treatment" which turned more and more people into chonic long-term "patients". Consequently, the institutions became bigger and bigger, while there was lesser and lesser governmental funding awarded to run them.
At the same time a change of attitude towards people who showed from the norm deviating behaviour took place in society, away from respecting them as equal fellow human beings, towards regarding them not only as disturbed but also extremely disturbing the rest of society elements, that ought to be put away and silenced.
At the end of the 19th century psychiatry in a way was back in a pre-Quaker-state: people were locked up under miserable circumstances at enormous institutions (asylums), and treatment consisted of threatening and terrorizing them, also because there, due to the lack of funding, was very little staff available.
No longer was staff expected to show empathy and respect as the decisive qualities, but was employed according to the criterion of how many "lunatics" they were able to control at the same time - with the help of physical violence. Along with the invention of lobotomy, today euphemistically called "psycho surgery", ECT and psychopharmacologic drugs, the medical profession furthermore got the wind in its sails: look what we can - NOT!
And, apart from single exceptions like the Vestlaplandsmodellen, Soteria, the Italian psichiatria democratica, etc., AND, here in Denmark, Gaderummet, this is where we are today.
The mental health system hasn't changed much since it was established in the 18th century. Neither in regard to treatment methods nor in regard to the philosophy these are based upon.
It's true that people in Denmark aren't anymore locked up indefinitely at huge institutions, but they are still locked up in their own small chemical institutions, in most cases for life.
The still not in any way proven assertion about "mental illnesses" being genetically determined brain diseases labels people with existential problems as second rate human beings with a defective and therefor unreliable brain functioning.
In consequence, they are talked down to, if at all they are talked TO and not just ABOUT, and they are threatened and terrorized, although today in a somewhat more sophisticated way than at the time when they were drowned and revived and the like.
Today we have restraints, "medicine" without effect apart from numerous extremely unpleasant and health damaging side effects, and we have electroshock. We have a total absence of choices, and last but not least, we still have a very high mortality rate, although this today is explained away as being a result of the "illness" rather than of the treatment.
All in all an Orwellian system, consistently denying us the right to define ourselves, the right to self-determination, and through this the right to choose. A system that deprives us of our identity and integrity, and reduces us to "patients" more or less without legal rights, a system that leaves us paralyzed and without a language in a vacuum stripped of meaning, where we can't do anything but deny ourselves. All this "for our own good"...???
That it is possible to, very effectively, help people with emotional problems without the interference of the medical profession, both the Quakers, and later Laing, Mosher and others have proven. Today Windhorse, Vestlaplandsmodellen and Gaderummet prove this. A medical evaluation is useful in order to exclude the presence of physical problems. But after this is excluded, doctors have nothing more to contribute to the solution of the problem, and ought to be left out of the help for people in emotional crisis.
Personally, I'm more than tired of psychiatry's continued allegations, that there were no documentation for other than medical approaches to work, while this is documented since the beginning of the 19th century!
Evidence there is for one thing: that non-medical approaches work far better than medical ones. Why is this fact continuously denied?
I am just as tired and disappointed to hear time and again that the psychiatric profession as well as politicians are willing to listen to the users' needs and wishes, only to, subsequently, witness everything being done to force the closing down of a user-friendly alternative like Gaderummet through, and a psychiatrist who dares to speak up against overmedication in public being dismissed.
And last but not least, I am very disappointed to see a "Fremtidens ambulante psykiatri" (Future mental health community care), that sets the scene for a much easier access to ECT, and through this a furthermore increased use of this brain damaging treatment, and that does not mention ECT- and drug-free treatment alternatives with a single word.
This obviously is, in how far it is intended to listen to us, that neither in future our wishes will be taken into consideration the least.
Just like everybody else, we have a right to be seen and listened to, we have a right to ourselves and our experiences be respected, not as "patients" with an "illness", but as human beings with deeply human experiences, and we have a right to get help to understand these.
To label us being "sick in our heads" is NOT to see, hear and respect us. To see, hear and respect us, is to offer us free choice and to establish and keep up alternatives like Gaderummet.
When will society overcome its existential fear of people in extreme states of mind, when will our experiences and realities be respected as meaningful and deeply human, when will we be given the help, that can make us constructively contributing members of this society, instead of disabling us and condemning us to a life at club houses, on disability, more or less dependent on the condemning?
I myself am psychosis-experienced, and have been in the incredibly lucky situation to be able to choose a kind of "moral treatment", namely talk therapy, as my help. Among other reasons because I could afford it.
I have at no time been exposed to neither medical or other psychiatric assaults against myself, and I will always be grateful to my therapist for sparing me these, and respecting me as the human being I am.
I wished, everybody in emotional distress, regardless of the kind of distress and the person's financial circumstances, was given the same possibility to choose that I had, and thereby the possibility to choose liberation instead of oppression of their often huge constructive and creative potential.
Literature:
Robert Whitaker, Mad In America. Bad Science, Bad Medicine, And The Enduring Mistreatment Of The Mentally Ill.
Joanna Moncrieff, Psychiatric Imperialism: The Medicalisation Of Modern Living.
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Saturday, 26 April 2008
Psychiatric drug withdrawal - a warning
I remember my therapist say that, oh no, she hadn't experienced people being really troubled by withdrawal symptoms when tapering off of psychiatric drugs. I'd mentioned how difficult coming off actually can be, especially naming the antidepressant Effexor, that usually causes by far the worst withdrawal symptoms among antidepressant drugs.
Now, unfortunately, it isn't only that coming off can be difficult. It can very well also be dangerous, seriously damaging your physical health, as the example of Gianna Kali shows.
Gianna, who, because of the damage coming off did to her physical health, has decided to take a break from posting on her blog, has posted a WARNING in regard to coming off as the last post on her blog, at least for a while - I, and I guess everybody else who reads this too, hope, that you'll be back in better health some day, Gianna! - and I strongly recommend it to everybody who considers coming off their drugs. Just as I recommend it to mental health professionals, my therapist very much included!
Some thoughts in context with this: It baffles me, time and again, to see the discrepancy between what professionals are fond of calling "quality of life", and what I witness psychiatric drugs, taking them as well as tapering off of them, are doing to people's actual quality of life. I somehow suspect, that which they're really talking about is not the quality of life of the individual in crisis, but that of everyone around the person concerned.
As I imagine it has been and is the case for many of you, me too, I had to put up with persistent yatter about these drugs being able to enhance my quality of life - the guidance was brilliant, yes, not perfect! Luckily, I was bloody-minded, or resilient (or just "poison-paranoid"??), enough to turn the "offer" down, just as persistently. And luckily, my refusal was respected in the end. One of the things I today am most grateful to my therapist for. Indeed, I think, if I back then had known what I know today about psych drugs, I might very well have left her office at the first mentioning of "something", never going back. My decision then was a purely intuitive one: Always trust your intuition! And, as Gianna calls on in her post, the signals your body sends you.
However, what really both saddens and maddens me is to see all too many (not so bloody-minded, resilient) people get their health, and by this their quality of life, destroyed by the drugs. Sometimes permanently. Sometimes, and all too often, with death as a consequence. Did Mikkel die from drinking, or from diabetes? No, sorry. Mikkel died from taking Zyprexa. Does Sidse have to live with increasing obesity and deteriorating general health, AND the obvious deterioration of her quality of life these cause, because her "mental illnesses" (they can't even agree, so she's labelled both this and that, and the third in addition, and, sure, stuffed with the respective drugs!) is more serious than the loss of quality of life (and, maybe in future, which is worse)? Is it all right, as the NHS of Denmark concluded, that Luise died after she'd been forcibly injected with a drug (one out of nine! psych drugs she was on at the same time) she couldn't tolerate, the staff being pretty much aware of this? Again and again, Luise had stated, that she felt the drugs were killing her. No one listened, other than in order to label her "poison paranoid", too. While the "expert" who actually killed her, in the meantime became employed in a leading position at the Patients' Complaint Board, assessing the validity of complaints very much the same as that, Luise's mother filed against him/her. Can which Gianna is going through be justified in any way?? Sorry, but the answer is NO! No conception of "quality of life" can ever justify any of this.
The people who prescribe these drugs claim to be medical doctors and to practise which they themselves are fond of calling "medical art". I'd say, real medical art is being able to see when people's quality of life is deteriorating or being destroyed because of health issues, and to do everything possible to re-establish the quality of life, the health, respectively to prevent the destruction from taking place. In my opinion, everything else is to be called ignorance, quackery - or cynicism.
"Which gives me a hard time isn't that much what has been anymore. It's what is, what I see is going on in this world, here and now", I stated at my last therapy session in December last year. I was speaking in general. But this statement certainly also, and not least!, applies to what I see is going on inside the mental illness system.
Which in addition gives me a hard time is the persistent reluctancy to really openly deal with these issues in society. While I find it especially frustrating to witness this reluctancy in context with certain "insider"-media. Partly, this is responsible for my anger toward this certain media, that some of you maybe have observed finding expression in some of my recent posts.
Oh and, by the way, Gianna did taper off of her drugs under the surveillance and with the guidance of an "expert", practising "medical art", yah. She did not try to do it on her own, as you immediately might think, regarded the outcome.
Now, unfortunately, it isn't only that coming off can be difficult. It can very well also be dangerous, seriously damaging your physical health, as the example of Gianna Kali shows.
Gianna, who, because of the damage coming off did to her physical health, has decided to take a break from posting on her blog, has posted a WARNING in regard to coming off as the last post on her blog, at least for a while - I, and I guess everybody else who reads this too, hope, that you'll be back in better health some day, Gianna! - and I strongly recommend it to everybody who considers coming off their drugs. Just as I recommend it to mental health professionals, my therapist very much included!
Some thoughts in context with this: It baffles me, time and again, to see the discrepancy between what professionals are fond of calling "quality of life", and what I witness psychiatric drugs, taking them as well as tapering off of them, are doing to people's actual quality of life. I somehow suspect, that which they're really talking about is not the quality of life of the individual in crisis, but that of everyone around the person concerned.
As I imagine it has been and is the case for many of you, me too, I had to put up with persistent yatter about these drugs being able to enhance my quality of life - the guidance was brilliant, yes, not perfect! Luckily, I was bloody-minded, or resilient (or just "poison-paranoid"??), enough to turn the "offer" down, just as persistently. And luckily, my refusal was respected in the end. One of the things I today am most grateful to my therapist for. Indeed, I think, if I back then had known what I know today about psych drugs, I might very well have left her office at the first mentioning of "something", never going back. My decision then was a purely intuitive one: Always trust your intuition! And, as Gianna calls on in her post, the signals your body sends you.
However, what really both saddens and maddens me is to see all too many (not so bloody-minded, resilient) people get their health, and by this their quality of life, destroyed by the drugs. Sometimes permanently. Sometimes, and all too often, with death as a consequence. Did Mikkel die from drinking, or from diabetes? No, sorry. Mikkel died from taking Zyprexa. Does Sidse have to live with increasing obesity and deteriorating general health, AND the obvious deterioration of her quality of life these cause, because her "mental illnesses" (they can't even agree, so she's labelled both this and that, and the third in addition, and, sure, stuffed with the respective drugs!) is more serious than the loss of quality of life (and, maybe in future, which is worse)? Is it all right, as the NHS of Denmark concluded, that Luise died after she'd been forcibly injected with a drug (one out of nine! psych drugs she was on at the same time) she couldn't tolerate, the staff being pretty much aware of this? Again and again, Luise had stated, that she felt the drugs were killing her. No one listened, other than in order to label her "poison paranoid", too. While the "expert" who actually killed her, in the meantime became employed in a leading position at the Patients' Complaint Board, assessing the validity of complaints very much the same as that, Luise's mother filed against him/her. Can which Gianna is going through be justified in any way?? Sorry, but the answer is NO! No conception of "quality of life" can ever justify any of this.
The people who prescribe these drugs claim to be medical doctors and to practise which they themselves are fond of calling "medical art". I'd say, real medical art is being able to see when people's quality of life is deteriorating or being destroyed because of health issues, and to do everything possible to re-establish the quality of life, the health, respectively to prevent the destruction from taking place. In my opinion, everything else is to be called ignorance, quackery - or cynicism.
"Which gives me a hard time isn't that much what has been anymore. It's what is, what I see is going on in this world, here and now", I stated at my last therapy session in December last year. I was speaking in general. But this statement certainly also, and not least!, applies to what I see is going on inside the mental illness system.
Which in addition gives me a hard time is the persistent reluctancy to really openly deal with these issues in society. While I find it especially frustrating to witness this reluctancy in context with certain "insider"-media. Partly, this is responsible for my anger toward this certain media, that some of you maybe have observed finding expression in some of my recent posts.
Oh and, by the way, Gianna did taper off of her drugs under the surveillance and with the guidance of an "expert", practising "medical art", yah. She did not try to do it on her own, as you immediately might think, regarded the outcome.
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
Gaderummet and Jan Ole Jørgensen
Since Kalle, in the wake of and in regard to Jan Ole Jørgensen's massive harassment at both official places and private persons' blogs and e-mail inboxes, has decided to go public with the reason for Jan Ole's behavior, I want to share it here too, for everyone, who doesn't understand Danish and thus isn't able to get the information directly from Gaderummet's site.
In short: Back in 1995 Jan Ole Jørgensen applied for a position as a counsellor at the counselling facility "Regnbuen" (Rainbow), predecessor of Gaderummet. His application was rejected by Kalle, who assessed him unsuitable for the job (indeed Jan Ole had no qualifications). Ever since Jan Ole has tried to get at Kalle.
As I suspected: Personal reasons.
In short: Back in 1995 Jan Ole Jørgensen applied for a position as a counsellor at the counselling facility "Regnbuen" (Rainbow), predecessor of Gaderummet. His application was rejected by Kalle, who assessed him unsuitable for the job (indeed Jan Ole had no qualifications). Ever since Jan Ole has tried to get at Kalle.
As I suspected: Personal reasons.
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Simple and clear cut
"Outsideren - looking at the mental health system from the inside" -Outsideren's motto
"As long as both sides deny to go beyond their own safe language, where which you believe in is well-established, alternatives won't come into being." -Outsideren about the ECT-debate (and about the psychiatry-debate in general)
"Risks are part of the territory; if you don't take chances nothing ever happens." -Loren Mosher
Put the two first quotes in connection with each other, and see Outsideren's flaw appear - simply and clear cut. The very same flaw, that characterizes the mental illness system, which Outsideren, in it's own words, looks at from the inside, i.e. from the point of it's own safe language, where which it believes in is well-established - by a system, that indeed has "the same kind of problems that its clients do" have, and whose actions manifest the very same safety behavior its clients, for safety reasons kept prisoners of their unconscious minds, are expected to manifest.
Achieving the freedom of thought and conscious language necessary to imagine alternatives from this prison of unconsciousness would presuppose Outsideren to take the risk of having a look at the mental health system from somewhere else than the inside of this prison.
Still not simple and clear cut enough? Then, compare Outsiderens above quoted motto to Madness Radio's intro: "...voices and visions from outside mental health...".
"As long as both sides deny to go beyond their own safe language, where which you believe in is well-established, alternatives won't come into being." -Outsideren about the ECT-debate (and about the psychiatry-debate in general)
"Risks are part of the territory; if you don't take chances nothing ever happens." -Loren Mosher
Put the two first quotes in connection with each other, and see Outsideren's flaw appear - simply and clear cut. The very same flaw, that characterizes the mental illness system, which Outsideren, in it's own words, looks at from the inside, i.e. from the point of it's own safe language, where which it believes in is well-established - by a system, that indeed has "the same kind of problems that its clients do" have, and whose actions manifest the very same safety behavior its clients, for safety reasons kept prisoners of their unconscious minds, are expected to manifest.
Achieving the freedom of thought and conscious language necessary to imagine alternatives from this prison of unconsciousness would presuppose Outsideren to take the risk of having a look at the mental health system from somewhere else than the inside of this prison.
Still not simple and clear cut enough? Then, compare Outsiderens above quoted motto to Madness Radio's intro: "...voices and visions from outside mental health...".
Saturday, 19 April 2008
In my own words II
The discussion between Outsideren and me was, of course, not finished after I'd made the statement, I quoted here. Outsideren's following argument, in short, was, that it would need a simple and clear cut language, hitting a greatest possible common denominator, in order to get one's message through. And that this message would need to be simple and clear cut in itself in order to get through.
To me the term "message", used in this sense, is already problematic in itself. Can there be any other "message" in a text than that, which takes shape in the reader's thoughts while reading the text? Or: Can there be an overall message in a text, independent from the reader, at all?
To assume an overall, independent message to exist, implies an overall, independent mindset to exist. independent from individual diversities and personal development. A rather static, rigid, common denominator.
It is exactly this conception, I oppose. Writing, to me, is a process, a consciousness raising process. Just as reading is. While conscience never is a static, rigid, state of mind, but in itself a process, subject to constant change, a constant to and fro between death and renewed coming into existence.
The 40-year-old, white man's discourse, the greatest possible common denominator's discourse, is a static, rigid one. A discourse frozen in between death and coming into existence. Thus the process of becoming aware is frozen at the very same, unconscious point of stagnation. Moving only in circles, getting nowhere: "We'd need easier and faster procedures to employ coerced treatment."- "Why would we need easier and faster procedures to employ coerced treatment?" - "Because Søren jumped into the sea and died." - "Why did Søren jump into the sea and die?" - "Because we'd need easier and faster procedures to employ coerced treatment." - "Why would we need...?" and so on, and so on, eternally. While the answers to both questions lie far beyond of, what the greatest possible common denominator ever could explore. Laurence Simon has some more interesting observations on this kind of empty, and blocking any understanding, discourse on his radioblog here.
And, by the way, I think, I don't need to say more about what I think of the latest issue of Outsideren... The 40-year-old, white man won, once again. Here in the shape of a blazing speech of defence in favour of involuntary treatment, that in itself is a manifestation of the worse than murderous point of stagnation between death and possible life. While the individual, consciousness raising process, which not only characterizes writing and reading, but life as a whole, lost. Once again.
Did my message get through?...
To me the term "message", used in this sense, is already problematic in itself. Can there be any other "message" in a text than that, which takes shape in the reader's thoughts while reading the text? Or: Can there be an overall message in a text, independent from the reader, at all?
To assume an overall, independent message to exist, implies an overall, independent mindset to exist. independent from individual diversities and personal development. A rather static, rigid, common denominator.
It is exactly this conception, I oppose. Writing, to me, is a process, a consciousness raising process. Just as reading is. While conscience never is a static, rigid, state of mind, but in itself a process, subject to constant change, a constant to and fro between death and renewed coming into existence.
The 40-year-old, white man's discourse, the greatest possible common denominator's discourse, is a static, rigid one. A discourse frozen in between death and coming into existence. Thus the process of becoming aware is frozen at the very same, unconscious point of stagnation. Moving only in circles, getting nowhere: "We'd need easier and faster procedures to employ coerced treatment."- "Why would we need easier and faster procedures to employ coerced treatment?" - "Because Søren jumped into the sea and died." - "Why did Søren jump into the sea and die?" - "Because we'd need easier and faster procedures to employ coerced treatment." - "Why would we need...?" and so on, and so on, eternally. While the answers to both questions lie far beyond of, what the greatest possible common denominator ever could explore. Laurence Simon has some more interesting observations on this kind of empty, and blocking any understanding, discourse on his radioblog here.
And, by the way, I think, I don't need to say more about what I think of the latest issue of Outsideren... The 40-year-old, white man won, once again. Here in the shape of a blazing speech of defence in favour of involuntary treatment, that in itself is a manifestation of the worse than murderous point of stagnation between death and possible life. While the individual, consciousness raising process, which not only characterizes writing and reading, but life as a whole, lost. Once again.
Did my message get through?...
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
A New Earth
Today, I got a link to a web-event at Oprah Winfrey's - uhm, yah, the Oprah. Me neither, I'd never... But as I said to a friend recently: Life is full of surprises - site, that I'd like to share here.
It's sort of a web-book club, on Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth, with Eckhart Tolle and Oprah as hosts. I've watched the 1.part, and will definitely hang on to the bitter end. Check it out!
It's sort of a web-book club, on Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth, with Eckhart Tolle and Oprah as hosts. I've watched the 1.part, and will definitely hang on to the bitter end. Check it out!
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Stop the Mother's Act!
Comment on About Mayor Warming's Position Toward Facts
Concerning the comment on Kalle Birck Madsen's answer to Mayor Warming by Jan Ole Jørgensen:
I recently rejected a similar though more detailed comment by Jan Ole Jørgensen at my Danish blog. Because it isn't difficult to find his very same comment on the Gaderummet-affair plenty of other places on the net. There isn't a blog nor discussion forum or newspaper article where you can comment, where he doesn't. No need to have it on my Danish blog, too.
Well, nevertheless, since most of you, who read this, probably don't speak (read) Danish, and thus haven't seen his comment, I decided to publish it here on my English blog, just FYI. And, Jan Ole, once, only once!, I will publish a comment by you on one of my blogs.
Before I started to engage in Gaderummet, I had a close look at both critical and favourable voices. Of course, there are a few critical voices. Jan Ole's is by far the loudest and most persistent one of them. However, I haven't been able to find any support of his accusations against Kalle anywhere.
My strong impression is, that Jan Ole's accusations are based on personal differences between him and Kalle, which are of no importance concerning Gaderummet or Kalle's professional competence. Otherwise, neither the heavy support of Gaderummet and Kalle, nor the fact, that the authorities don't make use of any of the accusations put forward by Jan Ole, is understandable.
I recently rejected a similar though more detailed comment by Jan Ole Jørgensen at my Danish blog. Because it isn't difficult to find his very same comment on the Gaderummet-affair plenty of other places on the net. There isn't a blog nor discussion forum or newspaper article where you can comment, where he doesn't. No need to have it on my Danish blog, too.
Well, nevertheless, since most of you, who read this, probably don't speak (read) Danish, and thus haven't seen his comment, I decided to publish it here on my English blog, just FYI. And, Jan Ole, once, only once!, I will publish a comment by you on one of my blogs.
Before I started to engage in Gaderummet, I had a close look at both critical and favourable voices. Of course, there are a few critical voices. Jan Ole's is by far the loudest and most persistent one of them. However, I haven't been able to find any support of his accusations against Kalle anywhere.
My strong impression is, that Jan Ole's accusations are based on personal differences between him and Kalle, which are of no importance concerning Gaderummet or Kalle's professional competence. Otherwise, neither the heavy support of Gaderummet and Kalle, nor the fact, that the authorities don't make use of any of the accusations put forward by Jan Ole, is understandable.
By the way...
...the title of the last video at the bottom is "Blue", by Ghostland & Sinéad O'Connor.
Monday, 7 April 2008
My apologies!
I see, that I owe Scientology an apology: In a couple of previous posts I've accused Scientology of brain washing, which isn't valid. "There is no brain washing going on at Scientology,..." sociologist and Scientology-expert Peter B.Andersen says here, and I take it that he knows what he's talking about. Better than me. So, Scientology actually is leading by 3 to 0, in regard to psychiatry: No brain damaging "treatment" nor coercion, and no brain washing, neither. And, as mentioned end to end with psychiatrist Per Vendborg's attack on me in the wake of my keynote speech at the "Bedre vilkår"-pre-hearing (I'll post it here too, as soon as possible), when it comes to Scientology's criticism of psychiatry, it is based on very well-researched facts, and if anyone thinks, it can be declared null and void: Nothing doing! So saying, my apologies to Scientology!
Saturday, 5 April 2008
Friday, 4 April 2008
Memphis, Tennessee - Christiania
Today it is 40 years since Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. "A riot is the language of the unheard", he said. Riots we've got numerous of, by now: "Hear us!"
According to the authorities, we live in a democracy. A democracy is characterized by its respect for EVERYBODY. Since the authorities in this country are so proud of (or should I say: self-satisfied with?) representing a (-n alleged) democratic government, that they, recently, even felt a call to publish a canon of democracy, isn't it time to translate democracy into action? Isn't it time to start and listen to EVERYBODY, instead of threatening people (in a rather totalitarian way) to keep quiet and toe the line??
"It's completely all right and correct, how the police acts. The young people have to pull themselves together, and go about their school and jobs, and stop thinking, that they can establish a parallel society based on their own values", says Kim Andersen, spokesman of legal affairs, member of the ruling right-wing party Venstre, here about the latest riots at Christiania. In other words: Shut up, forget about your ideals and dreams, and look to it that you become hard-workingly producing and consuming - and tax paying! - stupid sheep, just like everybody else! (So that Denmark also in future may be able to play war games, and participate in ruining life for millions of people worldwide. Yeah.)
Yah, well, the thing is, that it needs thoughtfulness to listen to EVERYBODY, to respect EVERYBODY, to consider EVERYBODY's needs and wants. Without doubt, it is far easier to rule a homogenous flock of stupid sheep, than to consider EVERY need in a diverse society consisting of independently thinking individuals.
"Rarely do we find men, who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think", Martin Luther King, Jr. also said.
According to the authorities, we live in a democracy. A democracy is characterized by its respect for EVERYBODY. Since the authorities in this country are so proud of (or should I say: self-satisfied with?) representing a (-n alleged) democratic government, that they, recently, even felt a call to publish a canon of democracy, isn't it time to translate democracy into action? Isn't it time to start and listen to EVERYBODY, instead of threatening people (in a rather totalitarian way) to keep quiet and toe the line??
"It's completely all right and correct, how the police acts. The young people have to pull themselves together, and go about their school and jobs, and stop thinking, that they can establish a parallel society based on their own values", says Kim Andersen, spokesman of legal affairs, member of the ruling right-wing party Venstre, here about the latest riots at Christiania. In other words: Shut up, forget about your ideals and dreams, and look to it that you become hard-workingly producing and consuming - and tax paying! - stupid sheep, just like everybody else! (So that Denmark also in future may be able to play war games, and participate in ruining life for millions of people worldwide. Yeah.)
Yah, well, the thing is, that it needs thoughtfulness to listen to EVERYBODY, to respect EVERYBODY, to consider EVERYBODY's needs and wants. Without doubt, it is far easier to rule a homogenous flock of stupid sheep, than to consider EVERY need in a diverse society consisting of independently thinking individuals.
"Rarely do we find men, who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think", Martin Luther King, Jr. also said.
In my own words
For almost a year by now, I've been writing articles for a Danish user's magazine, Outsideren. Virtually for each article, I've felt some obscure, though nevertheless strong, dislike watching my writing getting edited to an extent, that almost turned it into someone else's (the editor's) writing. Both in regard to style and content - which, in my opinion can't be separated from each other.
Yesterday, the editor asked me, which were most important to me, my message or my style. Today, he got the answer*:
God created man in His image. - Man created God in the image of "the 40-year-old, white male/man".
Is it my message, or my style, that is most important to me?
Which is "my syle"? My style is my words is my discourse is myself. If I have a message, that is mine, I only can communicate it in my own words. The message becomes another, if I make use of another person's words.
Example: Karin Garde** tries to break with psychiatry's (science's, society's) paradigm of "the 40-year-old, white male/man". Using the 40-year-old, white man's (psychiatry's, science's, society's) discourse (categorizations, diagnoses). Doomed to failure right from the start.
Now, the 40-year-old, white man doesn't only dominate psychiatry, science, politics, society. He also dominates journalism, the media. Of course. Women, humans are far from as liberated, come into their own, as most people think. Because it isn't about replacing "the 40-year-old, white man" with "the 35-year-old, black woman". Such a misconception turned for example Laing's efforts into their contrary.
If it isn't about replacing one stereotype with another, what then is it about? The answer lies in the question. It is about replacing stereotypes, images, with alive individuals.
For all my life, I've been trapped in, oppressed, discriminated and almost killed by "the 40-year-old, white man"-stereotype (family, school, university, politics, society, media...). I couldn't identify with any of the available, 40-year-old, white man stereotypes. Marian was trapped in them to the extent, that she didn't even have the chance to protest in a creative, constructive way, but had to resort to which society's representatives of the 40-year-old, white man term self-/destructive, psychotic behavior, but which in fact is nothing but a Marian'ic protest.
Three categories: Objectivity (scientific, political, journalistic... "But this is completely diabetic/democratic/editorial!" ???), poetic creativity ("But this is completely Orwellian!" Ah, now it starts to make sense...), psychotic destructivity ("But this is completely crazy/insane/schizophrenic!" Bingo, that goes home!)
I'm about to move further and further away from categories - toward "Marian". Can Outsideren hold the Marian'ic? Or: Can any mainstream media hold the individual? (This is not an attack against Outsideren in itself. It is an attack against the discourse, that dominates our age - which Outsideren happens to be a part of - in general.
For now, I need to get this at a distance. It is just too destructive. (Sorry! Not an attack against Outsideren in itself!) As said, I'll provide you with news from abroad. No problem. In regard to articles, I will help as much as I can. With the research.
I don't wanna be no man's woman
I've other work I want to get done
- Sinéad O'Connor
(Sad, that she eventually anyway became a victim of which she protested against... Good though, that it didn't happen earlier!)
*This is a slightly shortened version of it.
**Karin Garde is a Danish psychiatrist who has written a book on how to break with psychiatry's norm for normality, which is based on "the 40-year-old, white male/man" - by adding a female version of this norm.
___________________
Arrogant? Self-centred? Crazy? Yah, in the eyes of the 40-year-old, white man any attempt to create oneself in one's own image certainly is...
I want to add, that which made the reason for me feeling an obscure, though strong, dislike, become clear to me was that I recently read a text written by Karen Henninger on categorization, stereotypes and discrimination, that led my thoughts back to when I studied, among others, Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva etc. (Karen Henninger's text is not freely available on the net).
Yesterday, the editor asked me, which were most important to me, my message or my style. Today, he got the answer*:
God created man in His image. - Man created God in the image of "the 40-year-old, white male/man".
Is it my message, or my style, that is most important to me?
Which is "my syle"? My style is my words is my discourse is myself. If I have a message, that is mine, I only can communicate it in my own words. The message becomes another, if I make use of another person's words.
Example: Karin Garde** tries to break with psychiatry's (science's, society's) paradigm of "the 40-year-old, white male/man". Using the 40-year-old, white man's (psychiatry's, science's, society's) discourse (categorizations, diagnoses). Doomed to failure right from the start.
Now, the 40-year-old, white man doesn't only dominate psychiatry, science, politics, society. He also dominates journalism, the media. Of course. Women, humans are far from as liberated, come into their own, as most people think. Because it isn't about replacing "the 40-year-old, white man" with "the 35-year-old, black woman". Such a misconception turned for example Laing's efforts into their contrary.
If it isn't about replacing one stereotype with another, what then is it about? The answer lies in the question. It is about replacing stereotypes, images, with alive individuals.
For all my life, I've been trapped in, oppressed, discriminated and almost killed by "the 40-year-old, white man"-stereotype (family, school, university, politics, society, media...). I couldn't identify with any of the available, 40-year-old, white man stereotypes. Marian was trapped in them to the extent, that she didn't even have the chance to protest in a creative, constructive way, but had to resort to which society's representatives of the 40-year-old, white man term self-/destructive, psychotic behavior, but which in fact is nothing but a Marian'ic protest.
Three categories: Objectivity (scientific, political, journalistic... "But this is completely diabetic/democratic/editorial!" ???), poetic creativity ("But this is completely Orwellian!" Ah, now it starts to make sense...), psychotic destructivity ("But this is completely crazy/insane/schizophrenic!" Bingo, that goes home!)
I'm about to move further and further away from categories - toward "Marian". Can Outsideren hold the Marian'ic? Or: Can any mainstream media hold the individual? (This is not an attack against Outsideren in itself. It is an attack against the discourse, that dominates our age - which Outsideren happens to be a part of - in general.
For now, I need to get this at a distance. It is just too destructive. (Sorry! Not an attack against Outsideren in itself!) As said, I'll provide you with news from abroad. No problem. In regard to articles, I will help as much as I can. With the research.
I don't wanna be no man's woman
I've other work I want to get done
- Sinéad O'Connor
(Sad, that she eventually anyway became a victim of which she protested against... Good though, that it didn't happen earlier!)
*This is a slightly shortened version of it.
**Karin Garde is a Danish psychiatrist who has written a book on how to break with psychiatry's norm for normality, which is based on "the 40-year-old, white male/man" - by adding a female version of this norm.
___________________
Arrogant? Self-centred? Crazy? Yah, in the eyes of the 40-year-old, white man any attempt to create oneself in one's own image certainly is...
I want to add, that which made the reason for me feeling an obscure, though strong, dislike, become clear to me was that I recently read a text written by Karen Henninger on categorization, stereotypes and discrimination, that led my thoughts back to when I studied, among others, Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva etc. (Karen Henninger's text is not freely available on the net).
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