The perfect parent

If everything else doesn't pan out, there's one thing you can do to achieve god-like status, perfection, in life: become a parent. At least to judge from the reaction of lots of parents to the least suggestion that maybe, just maybe, they didn't only have an influence on any success achieved by their offspring, but maybe, just maybe, also on one or the other failure, suffering, in their kids' lives, these parents seem to think they don't have to take the least responsibility for their parenting as being a parent in their opinion obviously equals to being the perfect parent. Being a parent seems to, automatically, turn you into some kind of supernatural being, infallible, and beyond any criticism. By definition there's no such thing as "bad parenting", there's no such thing as child abuse, neglect, or any kind of dysfunctional communication patterns acted out by parents towards their children. Parents don't make mistakes. To insinuate that they maybe, just maybe, are no less imperfect, fallible, and human as everybody else, and to ask them to take responsibility for their imperfection, their fallibility, and their humanity, borders to a cardinal sin.

Lola's is a quite interesting comment in this regard. Her daughter's upbringing was nothing less than perfect. No one, least of all Lola herself, made as much as one single mistake raising her daughter. It was all beer and skittles. Well, until "mental illness" struck, like a bolt from the blue. Never mind that alone reading about a "mentally ill" mother (Lola), that is a mother with major "issues", which, since she herself ascribes them to "mental illness", hardly can be anything but unresolved -- and as we all know, unresolved trauma inevitably gets acted out and thus passed on to any children, if there are any --, and about an "ex", into the bargain also this "ex" with "mental health issues", which means divorce, would, and should!, have everybody with just a minimum of insight into the human psyche shudder, and wonder how the kids cope in such a dysfunctional environment. Never mind that reading about all this obvious dysfunctionality wouldn't, and shouldn't!, have anyone with just a minimum of insight into the human psyche be the least surprised when they hear that a kid raised in this dysfunctionality reacts to it developing coping strategies that then, ignoring any insight into the human psyche, and maintaining the delusion of the perfect parent, conveniently can be labelled "mental illness".

There they are, the kids. Initially wanted, not for their own sake, but as an extension of their parents (' egos), whose only purpose in life it is to confirm their parents' infallibility, their god-like perfection as persons. But God help the kids, if they can't or won't fulfil this purpose, if they have the rudeness, selfishness, and ungratefulness to protest and thus expose their parents' violence towards them! Since the violence can't and must not be, in their parents' minds, since acknowledging to it would equal to having to give up on their "God delusion", it has to be the child who's imperfect, indeed defective, diseased.

So, please! psychiatry, step in and silence these rude, selfish, and ungrateful brats' completely unfounded accusations against us with your (pseudo-)scientific, medical authority! Once and for all. Please, label these rude, selfish, and ungrateful brats insane, that is whatever they say or do a symptom of "mental illness", and thereby invalid, not worth being listened to, and please, if ever you can, shut them up, free us from having to hear them scream out in pain over the violence we've inflicted on them!!!

Which also is quite interesting, is to watch some of these perfect parents go even further, not settling for having the rude, selfish, and ungrateful brat silenced, but additionally, in both hugging themselves, and fishing for the sympathy of people with just a minimum of insight into the human psyche, washing their hands of this dirty job of silencing the brat, and accusing psychiatry of being violent. These are the parents who complain about "misdiagnoses", side effects, lack of "treatment" efficacy, lack of services, and so on, and so on.

Sorry people, you have nothing to complain about. You asked for their help, and you got it. At least, they do whatever is in their power to meet your expectations. There's no way how psychiatry, or any other institution, ever could silence your children, and at the same time make them the successes, you initially wanted them to be. Success in life presupposes a language of one's own, through which the self can express itself. No language, no success. You asked for it yourselves. You asked for your children to be turned into non-persons, into a "mental illness", a failure.

You have no right whatsoever to judge and condemn people like Joseph Biederman or the Schofields. What these people do is nothing else but what you asked them to do, respectively what you do yourselves. You have no right to blame the pharmaceutical companies for pushing drugs with debilitating, and partly fatal "side" effects, and covering these "side" effects up. You asked for your children to be debilitated, and rendered lifeless. That you asked for this to happen in a metaphorical way, debilitating and killing your childrens' protesting self, doesn't make a difference. And you also asked for the cover-up. Since no perfect parent would ask for their child to be denied a self.

Psychiatry didn't establish itself, out of the blue. Just like your children didn't become "mentally ill" out of the blue. You asked for psychiatry to be established, in exactly the way it appears today, just like your behavior had your children react to it, and become "mentally ill".

Lastly, there's the returning "walk a mile in my shoes!"-thing. Well, I have. I've been about just as unconscious, unaware, and irresponsible, as these perfect parents are, or choose to be. Because, as mentioned before, the moment you know more than one side of the story, you're not innocent anymore. You stand with a choice, and with the entire responsibility for whatever choice you decide to make. And no, you don't even need to hear another side of the story from some critical professional or survivors, or whoever. You just need to listen to your children's side of the story. You just need to set yourself aside for once, and really listen to them. Not to whatever comes out of their mouth after they were "brought back" to seeing the world through your eyes, while they're drugged up over their own eyeballs, but while they're the most themselves, in "psychosis". You just have to try and walk a mile in your children's shoes.

Apart from all this, I can only wonder why someone, who thinks psych drugs, especially neuroleptics, are not designed for someone like her daughter, read between the lines: while they sure as hell are designed for the "real loonies", those not "misdiagnosed" -- and the concept of "misdiagnosis" always implies that there would be such a thing as correct diagnosis -- kept visiting and commenting on a blog authored by such a "real loony", playing up to this "real loony", who, into the bargain, isn't on any drugs, and, what more is, is a pronounced opponent to psych drugs and labels, and the institution of psychiatry as such. I can only wonder why someone who obviously firmly believes in biologically based brain diseases, at the same time, and repeatedly, joins in whenever there's a call for Soteria Houses. Soteria wasn't created to treat biologically based brain diseases. It was created out of the belief that the alleged biologically based brain diseases indeed were personal, existential crises. -- And the outcomes Soteria produced confirmed this belief to be true, btw. -- So, what's the big idea behind this sailing under false colors, behind this hypocrisy? Why not simply stand by one's convictions? Looking for sympathy? Seeking absolution for one's discriminatory us-and-them-thinking, even from the "real loonies" themselves? I have to disappoint you, X. No sympathy nor absolution for violence available here.
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Since somebody pointed out to me that, especially for people who haven't been following X's blog and/or her comments, here or elsewhere, for some time, it might look like I condemn X on the basis of one single remark about psych drugs on her blog: No, I don't. This is what I wrote in reply to this somebody, and I hope, it contributes to a better understanding of what I react to. -- Also I decided to anonymize. As the above mentioned somebody also points out to me, X is by far not the only one to engage in this kind of behavior, so, it's probably a little unfair to mention only her by name:

X has puzzled me for the entire about 2 years I've been following her blog. Lots of critical comments, asking for Soteria Houses, when everybody else was, slamming the Schofields, when everybody else did, or Joseph Biederman, when everybody else did, criticizing one or the other pharmaceutical company, when everybody else did, etc. etc. (and "everybody else" of course means a certain clique in the blogosphere). Still, at the same time there also always were these small inconsistencies. "Misdiagnosis", over and over again, and as if there was such a thing as a correct diagnosis, mentioning "psychosis" and "schizophrenia" as if they were valid labels, just not for her daughter, and also that over and over again. Not just once. But she also successfully avoided to ever take a clear stand, whether she does believe in the labels, in the drugs, in biopsychiatry, or not. So, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. And, frankly, I didn't believe my own eyes when I read her comments at "Lola's story", that quite clearly, and clearer than ever, state that she does believe in the righteousness of for instance a "bipolar"-label for, and the drugging for it of, kids. I mean, read the comments at Fid's blog. Lola writes about 6-year-olds who get labelled and drugged, and are helped by it, and no objection from X. She agrees. Lola's her friend, she admires Lola, Lola's right when she says, kids are helped by psychiatry, its labels, its drugs. I can only conclude that this does not add up with slamming the Schofields for having their 6-year-old daughter labelled and drugged. Not at all. She did it, because everybody else did it. The same applies to her slamming Biederman on her blog. One minute she condemns the man, also joins in whenever people voice ethical concerns about the labelling and drugging of children, the next she agrees that "bipolar" in kids is real. I ask her, at Fid's blog, if this really is what she believes. Yes, it is.

One thing is that I, under these circumstances, couldn't disagree more with her. And I think, I myself don't make a secret of my points of view on my blog. It's pretty clear where I stand. [So, it should have been clear to X, too.] Another is that I a) really don't understand why on earth she doesn't simply say so, when she disagrees, but keeps giving the impression that she would agree with people, when obviously she doesn't, and b) can't do with hypocrites. I actually have more sympathy with someone like Lola than with X. Lola never came to my blog, or made a comment elsewhere, pretending to agree when in truth she didn't.

Additionally, I want to emphasize -- if anybody is in doubt -- that a disagreeing opinion alone, brought forward in a factual manner, has my full respect. What I have no respect for whatsoever is hypocrisy.

The saddest thing

Reading "Lola's story", in fact more like her daughter's story, on Bob Fiddaman's blog yesterday really saddened me.

I came to think of the comment by "CJ" on the NYT-piece "Child's Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young", quoted by Rossa Forbes in her critique on the piece:

"It appears today's parents don't want to take time to examine themselves, their lifestyles, their parenting skills (or lack thereof) to see what might be affecting their child/ren. In addition, they might look to the schools, who have in many instances effectively taken away all outlets for normal childhood rambunctiousness by eliminating recess and phys ed, and requiring these little ones stay at their desks most of the day.

As for parents and physicians 'drugging' infants and preschoolers, well, as they say, you can't cure dumb.

As a nation, we are doing our youngsters a great disservice, substituting drugs for parenting, and placing the blame on others. Parents, take control. Do this by first taking control of yourselves."

Control, or responsibility. It hurts to face one's own inadequacies, mistakes, and dysfunctionality as a parent reflected in one's child reactions to them. And the more extreme the child's reactions, the more it hurts, because the more extreme the dysfunctionality they reflect. So, no doubt that it is a lot more comfortable to believe the misery isn't one's own responsibility, that you're not responsible for neither your own nor your "loved one's" pain. That it is all caused by fate, faulty genes, an imbalanced brain chemistry, nothing you could have done or can do anything about.

Related to this is the belief that the people who hold fate, faulty genes, and an imbalanced brain chemistry responsible are "just misguided", as a friend of mine keeps on telling me whenever I mention this dirty word: responsibility. And I mention it a lot, as the reader of this blog might have noticed. "Have compassion. It is no one's fault. They're just misguided." No one's fault. As in "it's a brain disease, bad genes, it's no one's fault". Or "no one's responsibility".

I recently complained to a friend about somebody's behavior really annoying me, draining me of energy. Like you'd complain to a shrink about your brain diseased child's behavior ruining your delusion of being the perfect parent. "You know," my friend said, "it's actually not that this person is annoying you, draining you of energy. You let her annoy you, and drain you of energy." Touché. Just as people, unless they are completely innocent, and don't know but one single version of a story, aren't misguided, but let themselves be misguided. With pleasure. For their own convenience.

This I wrote in a comment on another post at Rossa's blog:

"Everybody makes mistakes. Many people don't have the guts to admit their mistakes, to neither others, nor, and even less, to themselves. So they blame the suffering their mistakes causes not least themselves on others: "mental illness", and miss out on the opportunity to create transformation and growth for both themselves and their 'loved ones'. "

That's the price you have to pay for running from responsibility. You lose freedom. Also that from suffering. It's like peeing your pants, in the sense the Danes use the expression: at first, it feels nice and warm, but after a short while it gets really, really cold. But, no, you can't cure dumb. And the saddest thing is, when children have to pay for their parents' dumbness.

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?")

"Went off medication - and did not ask for permission before afterwards" - A note to consumers

As mentioned in my post about why the latest Danish research showing "schizophrenics" to do better off drugs won't change a bit about treatment the title of the article caused some indignation among consumers and survivors, and had somebody start a discussion at a Danish mainstream forum:

"What do you think about this title?
As a mentally ill person, don't you have any right to control your own body?
Comments, anyone?"

Well, of course you don't have any right to control your own body - or anything else - as a mentally ill person.

According to mainstream psychiatry "mentally ill" means brain diseased. Now ask yourself which part of your body, which organ, do you make use of as a tool when you have to estimate a situation, and decide how to react to it? Your shin bone? Your pancreas ("It's like diabetes, you know.")? I suppose not. Probably you'll make use of your brain.

I recently watched an interesting documentary about the Mary Celeste , the "archetypal ghost ship", according to Wikipedia. Which the Wikipedia entry, as far as I can see, doesn't tell is that it recently has become known that the Mary Celeste left New York for Genoa, Italy, with only one single chronometer on board. Usually an ocean-going ship of her size would not go anywhere without several, at least three or four, chronometers on board. Turns out, the one single chronometer on board of the Mary Celeste is defective, which of course renders it impossible for her captain, Benjamin Briggs, to calculate the position of the ship accurately. This, in addition to the Mary Celeste taking in water after having been through some rough weather, probably has led to his decision to abandon the ship. A very bad, in fact for him, his family and the rest of the crew fatal, decision made on the basis of inaccurate measurements (make that an inaccurate estimation) of the ship's position (make that any given situation), carried out with a defective chronometer (make that a diseased brain).

The situation would have been different had Briggs known that the chronometer was defective, in which way, and to which extent. He then could have taken the margin of error into account, and calculated the ship's position more accurately - and he maybe wouldn't have panicked and abandoned the ship, as she, although she was taking in some water, easily could have made it to her destination from where she was abandoned.

However, in the latter situation, the only correction tool at Briggs' disposal would have been his brain. And if it is your brain that is the defective chronometer, it is self-evident that you can't use it as a tool to correct itself, and expect accurate calculations. So, to the extent someone accepts the biological model and identifies as "mentally ill" they accept their tool for decision making to be defective, and will consequently have to accept that their estimation of any given situation may be inaccurate rendering their decisions potentially disastrous, maybe even fatal. They will have to accept being defined as incapacitated in regard to everything that requires brain activity. You can't have your cake and eat it. This is either-or, not both-and. Either you identify as "mentally ill", and you will have to give up on your freedoms and rights as a human being, or you don't, and you will have to take responsibility for yourself. For all that you do.

You can't righteously claim control of your body, for instance in regard to whether you want to reduce the dosage and number of psych drugs you're on, or maybe even whether to go entirely off of them, you can't righteously claim control of anything in your life, and at the same time whenever it suits you hold on to the idea that you can't be held responsible for any of your decisions that turn out bad, because you're "mentally ill". You can't even righteously feel offended by a title like the quoted one. It is only logic that you will have to leave all decision making to others, and ask for permission, no matter what you'd like to do if all you've got is a defective chronometer, a broken brain.

This by the way also applies to those who do not necessarily identify as suffering from a biological brain disease, but still think of their mind as being ill, as that which constitutes your mind are your thoughts and feelings, and as it is these you make use of in your decision making.

So, you may want to make up your mind. Do you want freedom, or do you want to be "mentally ill"?

Side effects

When I was about 17 I came down with an inflammation in my left knee, a reaction to overwork. I wasn't aware of that, so went to see my GP for an explanation of what was going on. As it is GPs - and virtually all other doctors' too - habit, he prescribed one of Big pHARMa's wonder cures. This was a new drug, that still was in the experimental stage, not yet fully approved. So, yeah, I was acting guinea pig for Big pHARMa.

Luckily, I didn't experience as much as one of all the in part rather frightening possible side effects listed for the drug. And it did the trick, rather quickly in addition. I maybe was on that crap for ten days. At the most. I wouldn't even have started to take something with such side effects as those listed, if I'd been told I would have to take it for at least several weeks or months, not to mention for the rest of my life. And the side effects still were somewhat harmless, compared to those of psych drugs.

Anyhow, had I experienced as much as the suspicion of only one single side effect, I can assure everyone, I'd instantly thrown the pills out. That is, I had not waited for my GP to tell me what to do. I'd stopped taking the poison here and now. I've never had excessive trust in the products of the pharmaceutical industry beforehand. Neither in the infallibility of medical expertise. The only reason I gave these pills a try was that I couldn't wait to be able to get back on horseback again, which the inflammation in my knee prevented me from.

Now I wonder how on earth it is, that I hear so many people report all sorts of intolerable side effects of psych drugs, as in this blog entry for instance, while, nevertheless, these people stay on the drugs, waiting for their doctor to decide for them what to do. How come? What keeps all these people from taking control of their life, their well-being, themselves, instead of leaving it with someone, who obviously doesn't care and/or is rather incompetent?? I really don't get it. Is it the spellbinding effect? Can it be the spellbinding effect, when someone realizes they're experiencing side effects, that it is not the "illness" that causes the misery? Is it some sort of half- or unconscious need to repeat the trauma: "I don't deserve to feel good. - But since society doesn't accept a conscious choice of emotional suffering, I choose the suffering the side effects cause"? Or are people really that alienated from themselves that they unconditionally trust in anybody else but themselves to know what's good and right for them, even though their body and soul is screaming at them that this is not so? Anyone?

To prevent misunderstandings: Of course I'm not talking about people who are forced to take psych drugs. That's a different story.

Reply from Kevin Siers

Thanks everyone for your comments on my previous post. In the meantime, I got a reply from Kevin Siers, where he writes, that his intention was not to scapegoat people in emotional distress, and that he didn't design the cartoon "with a professional's understanding of what mental illness is."

Well, that's the big problem here. That there a) is no true understanding of what "mental illness" is, and that b) the only "understanding" that the cartoon reflects, is the misunderstanding, promoted by the mh system, and distributed by the mainstream media - the Charlotte Observer, for instance. The problem is, that, while everybody is busy scapegoating the "mentally ill", they too are kept from becoming aware of the real terror: the terror of our society itself.

So, what we've got here, is Joe Public's ignorance and the consequential prejudice - that inevitably scapegoats, intended or not. How did Albert Camus put it: "The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding." Ignorance, unawareness, unconsciousness... What we've got here, is an excellent example of the evil our unconscious society continuously does, in the name of good.

Now, Kevin Siers also writes, that our letters to him "continue to be food for thought." I certainly do hope so! It truly is time, both for him and society in general, to wake up and face its own violence. Otherwise, we will never be able to prevent the terror from happening, no matter how restrictive gun laws.

Here's to my therapist II - Why "mental illness" is neither genetically caused nor genetically predisposed

I've got some really, really bad news for psychiatrists, parents, and "patients" who believe they can blame (their) genes for (their) "mental illness", in one way or the other. Actually, it's really bad news for everybody, who believes, they can blame anything on (their) genes.

I found the video below yesterday on Gianna's blog, when I had a look at the archives. It's the first of seven parts of a talk by cell-biologist Bruce Lipton.



What Bruce Lipton is explaining in the video-series actually is a scientific, biological proof for the trauma-model to be true, and the bio-medical, genetic model to be, well yeah, rubbish.

While today's genetics take a starting point in a model, that says genes produce proteins, that then activate behaviour, Bruce Lipton had wondered how it, under these circumstances, could be possible for living organisms to continuously show behaviour, even after their genes were removed.

He found out, that modern genetics had thrown away the decisive part of the whole, behaviour-creating process: genes do not produce proteins, but transmitters, signals do activate genes as a blueprint for new proteins. While these signals are sent by an effector, that in its turn is activated by a receptor, who, in the first place, had been activated by another, initial signal. And where did this initial signal come from? Well - and now it's definitely time for everyone, who doesn't want to know about the trauma-model to stop reading, and pretend nothing ever happened! The three monkeys, you know - it comes from the living organism's environment.

All behaviour, all life, that finds expression in behaviour, is always, and no matter if we talk a single cell, or a highly complicated organism such as man, a reaction to this life's environment.

What then about findings, that show for instance "schizophrenics" to, sometimes, deviate genetically from "normal" people? The thing is, when a secondary signal doesn't find a protein inside the organism, that matches the situation, i.e. that would create behaviour appropriate in the given situation (or: behaviour, that would be an appropriate and functioning response to the initial, primary signal), and if now the situation is so complicated (as for example a double bind is), that the signal doesn't find an appropriate blueprint in the genes, either, that could provide the basis for the production of an appropriate protein, the blueprint, the genes, can be varied. Mutations are possible. But in contrast to today's common belief, mutations aren't random, they are adaptive. And they're not inborn, other than when they're a response to signals from the environment, the living organism found itself in before birth.

Thus the environment shapes the genes of the in it living organism. It is not the genes, that, because of some random mutation, produce, seen in relation to the environment, irrational, inappropriate, dysfunctional behaviour. And, of course, the varied blueprint, the mutated gene, can be varied "back to normal" whenever the environment changes and renders the variation superfluous.

Sorry, Mom and Dad, but we're back at "the schizophrenogenic mother" & Co., yes. Actually, we're at a point, where no kind of "inappropriate", "sick", dysfunctional behaviour can be blamed on anyone's genes, that is on anyone's individually inborn charcteristics, anymore. On a biological level, life is proteins, not genes. Genes are nothing but a plan. The house is built by signals and of proteins, and which house is built depends on the ground, the environment. Not on predetermined plans. Every organism carries the plans for all imaginable houses inside itself, the possibility to change plans included. Thus, everything is possible. Which in the end becomes manifested is a question of what signals the environment sends - and of how the individual perceives its environment. Which is dependent on the environment that to start with has formed the individual's perception of its environment.

Brought to the level of human behaviour, it is perception (of our environment) that controls behaviour, not biology. While the way, we perceive our environment ("belief" in Bruce Lipton's words), in itself is acquired, is a reaction to environmental signals. Here treatment options like therapy, meditation, etc. enter the picture. A belief can be changed. Everything becomes possible. Provided that the individual becomes aware of its beliefs.

Bruce Lipton's findings correspond perfectly with what many of us, who haven't bought into the biological model - and both those who've had the experience of extreme states of mind themselves, and professionals as Laing and Mosher - have experienced: change the environment (for example by changing diet and exercise habits, or by moving faaar away from home*...), and you'll change the behaviour. And they correspond just as perfectly with the findings of neuroscience in the field of neuroplasticity.

Nevertheless, this also has a political dimension (discrimination, eugenics), and I fear, no matter how hard the scientific evidence, everything will be done to suppress findings like Bruce Lipton's. Bruce Lipton has written a book about his findings, The Biology of Belief, which I suppose to be a somewhat more rewarding and interesting read than, just as an example, Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight, or Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind (find the hurrays yourself, it's not an impossible task). The Biology of Belief was published in 2005, the videos at YouTube were posted in November 2007, and this is the first time, I've ever heard of it (which certainly isn't due to me not following what's going on).

Thank you, Gianna, for posting this!!!

BTW: NAMI recently reacted to the new findings about mutated chromosomes in relation to so-called "schizophrenia", I wrote about here and here. NAMI's report is, astonishingly though rightly, not half as enthusiastic as Thomas Werge's statements in the Danish media.

To all the Jill Bolte Taylors out there: you're definitely looking in the wrong place, folks. To all you therapists out there, advocating the biological, genetical version of the Stress-Vulnerability-Model: stop disempowering and patronizing people with fairy stories about genes, that are nothing but junk-science! And to everyone, who's out there, leaning comfortably back on disability, and in front of your TV, all day long, blaming your genes for your allegedly unchangeable and uncontrollable suffering (I know, now I'm controversial again): Belief controls behaviour, not biology. Take responsibility! If not for yourself, so at least for others. By stopping to diffuse junk-science's untruths about genes and biology, and by stopping to try to silence biopsychiatry's (junk-science's) critics.
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* Now, no one should think, it's enough just to pull up stakes and move to Timbuktu. That's something I've tried numerous times, without any lasting success. The problem remains the same. Only to pull up outside-stakes is never enough. It's also always the inner ones, the "belief", that has to be pulled up. - Although, it helps to move to Timbuktu. Unless that's where your "loved ones" actually do live...

Luise's story

A friend of mine, Pia, sent me a link to a feature article, published in the Danish newspaper Politiken on April 5th, 2002. The article thus isn't exactly written yesterday, and a lot has happened, also in regard to the article's subject, since it could be read in the newspaper. Nonetheless, I don't think it has lost any of its actuality, and I agree with Pia, that the subject ought to be discussed more in length.

"Historien om Lone" (Lone's Story) is the feature article's headline, while it actually is the story of Luise Hjermig Christensen, who died in 2005, a good three years after this article had been published. Back in 2005, the professionals, successfully, tried to explain away and cover up Luise's death as a result of an epileptic fit. While Luise never had a diagnosis of epilepsy, and most probably died from neuroleptic intoxication.

WHAT HAD HAPPENED?

Luise, a "cautious and poetic girl", as her mother describes her in her article, came into contact with psychiatry in 1992 when she was 19 years old. Luise had had "support universes" for a long time, and they'd never caused her problems. Which made her and her mother contact psychiatry was that she'd also started to hear voices, once in a while.

Luise was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Rigshopitalet/Copenhagen, for a "shorter evaluation", "most likely without any medical treatment to be applied", as she and her mother Dorrit Cato Christensen were told at the admission. since Luise wasn't plagued.

When Dorrit Cato Christensen came to see her daughter the following day, she found Luise lying on the floor, medicated to an extent that she was unable to rise. No one at the ward was willing to help, Luise's mother was told that Luise had collapsed on the floor many times throughout the past 24 hours, and that she probably fell deliberately in order to attract attention. Dorrit Cato Christensen was not able to get in touch with any doctor at the ward, and, as she puts it, she almost felt chased away by the staff.

Five days later Luise was transferred to Sct.Hans hospital, a psychiatric institution at Roskilde. (Those of you who maybe have read the Norwegian author Amalie Skram's autobiographical novel "Under Observation": this is it. And no, nothing much has really changed - not to speak about improved - since those days.)

Dorrit Cato Christensen there mentioned her concern about Luise being medicated with high dosages of neuroleptics, especially since Luise previously had had severe adverse reactions to anti-convulsants. The psychiatrist told her that "Luise was being medicated correctly".

Despite of "correct" medication, Luise's condition worsened rapidly, and four days after her transferral to St.Hans, after only twelve days under psychiatric "care", she suffered from Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome.

Subsequently, and as a result of this, Luise's behavior changed to the worse. Luise had never been aggressive. She became now. Her pleasant-to-be-in support universe "Øerne" (the islands) became supplemented by the extremely unpleasant "Tunnellerne" (the tunnels), something her mother right on interprets as a reaction to the traumatization the "treatment" by psychiatry had caused her daughter. While the system chose to react with even more aggressive medication, further traumatization.

Which, in the end, made the ruination of Luise's life inevitable, was that she came to set her room at the locked ward, where she was held back, on fire. Probably because she, heavily medicated as she was, fell asleep while smoking. Nevertheless, the staff claimed the arson had been intentional, and in court Luise pleaded guilty, as she at that time did concerning anything, including having killed her 150 children in the U.S. ... Which brought her in an indeterminate treatment sentence.

The long and the short of it is that Luise had an adverse reaction to an injection with Risperdal - she'd continuously refused to take medications, saying they were killing her, so she was forcibly injected, although her journal clearly stated that she couldn't tolerate Risperdal - and died 17 hours later in 2005 at Amager hospital. She was on nine different medications at that time, among those four different neuroleptics and two sedatives. The responsible psychiatrist stated she'd been undermedicated at St.Hans. During all in all three years of hospitalization until 2002, Luise had been forcibly medicated about 200 times, sometimes up to 20 days on end, her mother tells in the article.

At the time of Luise's death, the responsible psychiatrist was about to be employed in a leading position at the Patients' Complaint Board, where his/her task was to assess the validity of claims similar to the one Dorrit Cato Christensen filed against him/her. The Patients' Complaint Board did see no reason to defer the employment until the case was settled. The NHS of Denmark later stated, that the psychiatrist had acted correctly, while this settlement partly was based on false information about Luise's death being caused by an epileptic fit, as the hospital-staff claimed to begin with. This was later on invalidated, though without effect on the NHS' settlement of the case... So, it has to be assumed, that the psychiatrist in question still is employed at the Patients' Complaint Board, assessing the validity of claims similar to the one filed against him/her. And if I knew who this person is, the name might stand here, capital letters, as a warning against an incompetent psychiatrist. But I don't know this person's name.

"Might" because Luise's case unfortunately isn't an isolated one, as one immediately might believe. Just as little as the responsible psychiatrist represents an isolated case of incompetence among otherwise more or less competent colleagues.

EXPERTS IN THE HUMAN PSYCHE

To return to the feature article: I widely agree to Dorrit Cato Christensen's evaluation of the mental health system. Though not to all of her views. Thus she states that "[p]sychiatrists are experts when it comes to the human psyche."

That psychiatrists would be experts in the human psyche, on an existential level, can a single glance at the history of psychiatry expose to be a misconception. Psychiatrists are medical doctors, their interest thus is of a purely biological, physiological - mechanical - kind. The human nature, on an existential, philosophical level, is of no interest to them. Except for people like Loren Mosher, R.D.Laing or Grace Jackson. And in regard to these people, one has to conclude that their interest for the human nature is of a philosophical kind, not of a psychiatric one.

Real experts in the human psyche are rarely found among psychiatrists. If ever they're found among "professionals", they're most likely found among people with a humanistic background, such as psychologists and the like.

"The healers, the morale builders, that I've ever found, were very rarely among mental health professionals. They were outside of that. And the only ones who were, were again people who sort of were rebels and resisters. And a lot of the best healers that I knew when I was going to graduate school, or folks I knew who were psychiatry residents, they quit, because they just did not fit in. They felt incredibly alienated from this kind of mechanical, non-healing model that they were socialized and trained in", Bruce Levine said at a talk on his latest book "Surviving America's Depression Epidemic" at Amherst/Mass., on March 25th, 2008.

Psychiatrists aren't experts in the human psyche, and they're just as little experts in the human brain. Neurologists are the true experts in the human brain. "They [psychiatrists]" do not "know how the different medical drugs impact the various centers of the brain," other than vaguely. Why they feel their way. At the expense of their clientele, who, because of their position as being out of their minds, and not fit to make decisions of their own, far more easily than anyone else can be made guinea pigs, if the occasion should arise, even against their expressed will - the will of an individual who is labelled not accountable for his actions, by definition is without value, and may be ignored without consideration.

By the way, something of a paradox in regard to advance directives, that usually contain a paragraph asking you if you're willing to participate in trials. In addition to the paragraph about treatment, that is. All psychiatric "treatment" is nothing but one great big trial.

More information on psychiatry's "expertise" in regard to its definitions of and "treatment" measures available for "mental illness" can be found here. And no, nothing has come up since 2003 that could satisfy psychiatry's honour.

WORDS - ONCE AGAIN

I neither agree in Dorrit Cato Christensen's wording. Without doubt, her daughter was a very "cautious and poetic girl", a sensitive and vulnerable person. But this didn't make her a "sick" - in her head, or a "schizophrenic" person. Those adjectives are used by society and its executive psychiatry only and solely to justify the mental health system's way of steamrolling very sensitive and vulnerable people. To justify a sledgehammer to crack a nut. They are only and solely used in order to dehumanize, deprive the so-labelled human beings definitely of their humanity.

Those adjectives are used in order to explain away "maladjusted", inconvenient to society, behaviour, and in order to escape, to disclaim all responsibility for the fact that there are individuals who do not thrive in society and therefor have to withdraw into support universes. Especially if these individuals haven't got any tools to sublimate their discontent, and give it expression in another for them creative, constructive, and for society acceptable way.

Sensitive and vulnerable a person becomes whose feelings have been hurt. The more continuously and violently a person's feelings get hurt, the more sensitive and vulnerable this person becomes. That Dorrit Cato Christensen doesn't brush aside her daughter's support universes as a "symptom" of meaningless madness, as psychiatry as well as most relatives usually do in these situations, deserves credit. Nonetheless, she too navigates elegantly around regarding them as anything else than a reaction to the "treatment", her daughter has been exposed to in the mental health system. Which they undoubtedly also are. Also. The support universes do exist already before Luise's acquaintance with psychiatry, and thus can't have become a necessary refuge only because of this acquaintance. Something in Luise's life story has made support universes a necessity, already before she meets with psychiatry: sensitive and vulnerable individuals are individuals whose feelings have been hurt.

That Luise's flight into the support universes assumed the dimensions it did, and that the support universes increasingly reflected her traumatization induced by psychiatry, is not an isolated phenomenon. According to John M. Friedberg psychiatric "symptoms" imply resistance. "Can resistance be overcome by torture? Obviously", he states. Though, before the resistance is overcome, the individual, its humanity, destroyed, torture increases the resistance, the "symptoms" worsen, qualitatively and quantitatively.

Last but not least I do not at all agree to "that most [people in crisis] need medical treatment". Apart from the in Denmark well-known "Vestlaplandsmodellen", there are internationally several similar projects and studies that show the opposite, that actually prove medical "treatment" to often chronify crisis, and thus prevent full recovery. While individuals who escape medical "treatment" often achieve full recovery.

THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

Luise's case is not an isolated case. It's the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg, psychiatry, the mental health system as a whole is. Close contact with psychiatry can be life-threatening. Both ECT and psychotropic drugs are brain damaging. Individuals who are exposed to neuroleptics on a long-term basis do by now have a by 25 years reduced life expectancy compared to people who do not take these drugs. Long-term "treatment" with lithium often damages the person's kidneys. SSRIs make people suicidal, and harm unborn babies, if taken by their mothers under pregnancy. Uncountable individuals have died as a result of restraints. Coercion in general is profoundly traumatizing. And last but not least do most of the individuals who are labelled with "severe mental illness" end up on disability, as revolving door patients, and at drop ins and halfway houses: warehoused in a safe distance from the community, with the help of "treatment", "medicine", effectively prevented from drawing attention to themselves, deprived of their voice, their dignity, their humanity, and of any possibility to ever regain these. The delayed, undramatic and almost invisible killing we never learn about in the media, and which takes place in a safe distance from society. Every day. Uncountable times. Everywhere in this world. Also in Denmark.

Psychiatry as an institution is very well aware of that its task is no other than to relieve society from those individuals who react more sensitively and vulnerably to society than this society's normality is willing to accept, even if it costs the individual's life. Otherwise the Patients' Complaint Board without doubt would have upheld Dorrit Cato Christensen's contention on Luise's "treatment".

FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

Luise fought to a finish against the superiority, and for her humanity, her life, herself. But the more she fought the more the system punished her. The punishment covered up as "treatment", "help".

In a psychiatric context an individual's fight for his humanity is an "illness" that needs to be "treated", suppressed, even if it costs the individual's life. Just as it in the U.S. once was considered an "illness" when a slave ran away from slavery. It was the slave who was ill, not a society that made human beings slaves and denied them their dignity as human beings because of the colour of their skin. Also the "ill" slaves were punished severely, in order to "cure" them, and also this often cost the individual's life.

Luise never had a chance, she never arrived at the insight that saved for instance Judi Chamberlin's life: "Well, I've been a good patient, and I've been a bad patient, and believe me, being a good patient helps to get you out of the hospital, but being a bad patient helps to get you back to real life."

When reading "Lone's story", it strikes me again how close I myself have been to losing my life, to being killed. Literally or figuratively. I am rather rebellious by nature, just as Luise was. And crises, well, those have exactly been the periods in my life when the rebellious took over control, over "reason", when the least violation of my humanity, the least assault on myself resulted in violent and spontaneous protest reactions. In a psychiatric context this might very well have cost me my life.

A final note: About 10%, if not more, of the general population do hear voices (have hallucinations) once in a while, and I assume a somewhat just as high percentage does have what you might call "support universes" to withdraw to in extremely stressful situations. If any of this could be diseased at all, which I don't think it can, the completely natural self-preserving mechanism it is, it would be a possible suffering due to the experience of these self-preserving mechanisms. Luise did not suffer. At least not previously to her fatal acquaintance with psychiatry.

"Mental illness" - a myth

Here's the second of my posts on LAP's and the Sindnet-users' demand for more beds at psychiatric wards, which I wrote since my thoughts about psychiatry in general and its illness-concept in particular didn't seem to have been understood by some people. The two last paragraphs refer to a proposal to convert private wards into wards with several beds in order to establish more beds in general.


"Mental illness" is a myth, Thomas Szasz says. - And at this occasion I'd like to stress that I am NOT a scientologist, since I can hear some people mumble something along those lines, already, while I allow myself to quote Thomas Szasz. Whom I, by the way, am a great admirer of. - He's often misinterpreted (on purpose?), alleged to say that there were no such thing as psychological suffering. The point with his statement is that a metaphorical entity, such as the mind, can't be or fall ill in the same way the body can. The term "illness", mentioned in context with a metaphorical entity like the mind, thus functions as a metaphor itself, just as a "broken heart" is a metaphor and not a real, physical heart injury.

However, what psychiatry does is to equal the mind, the soul, to the brain. In the eyes of psychiatry the mind IS the brain. Why psychiatry almost exclusively concentrates on trying to find a defect, an injury in the brains of people who suffer from an injury to their soul. This is the same as to try to locate the break in the heart of someone who has a "broken heart". Psychiatry has been looking for more than a hundred years by now and hasn't found a scrap. But instead of expanding the search field, instead of taking others than the purely physical possibilities into account for closer investigation, psychiatry persistently adheres to the theory that the only possible cause of a broken heart would have to be a physically broken heart. - I once heard a neurosurgeon tell that he'd looked into uncountable brains during his career but he'd never seen a thought yet.

It is not without reason that psychiatry adheres so persistently - and actually unscientifically; true science never excludes any possibility unless real evidence is found - to its hypotheses about brain diseases. An expansion of the research that acknowledges the metaphorical nature of the mind, would automatically mean an admission of failure to psychiatry in favour of psychology, philosophy and sociology. One has to be aware of that psychiatrists by definition and training are medical doctors, experts in human physics, not humanists, whose speciality are human existential conditions, interpersonal relations or sociological conditions. Their psychiatric training is of no use in the humanistic field. Just as a training as an auto mechanic would be of no use in this field. In order to continuously be able to participate on a scientific level, psychiatrists would need to start completely from scratch and get themselves an education. A humanistic education, like Thomas Szasz has got it in addition to his training as a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists would have to face that their scientific, medical interest matches badly respectively not at all with a possible interest for the human psyche. "Possible" because with most psychiatrists I have a hard time tracing such an interest at all, except if the psyche, the mind, is equalled to the brain, or, and this is the crucial point, if the interest is all about how to control the human mind.

Personally, I, just as Thomas Szasz and many other humanists, count among those people who do not distinguish between "mental illness" and an existential crisis as psychiatry does. To me, the first is psychiatry's and society's discriminating term for the latter. And at the same time a view of existential crises being brain diseases, provides the only, in a democracy morally acceptable raison d'etre to psychiatry. Even though, seen in a medical context, it doesn't even quite hold, since brain diseases are the speciality of neurology, not psychiatry.

The moment "mental illness" were regarded an existential crisis, a reaction to one's life story instead of an imbalance in brain chemistry, psychiatry would appear as what I in accordance with the Swiss therapist Marc Rufer think it really is: a force of law and order. And as such its maintenance would no longer be acceptable in a democracy. Psychiatry, as the force of law and order it is, is a phenomenon that belongs in totalitarian systems. Since only totalitarian systems control their citizens' thoughts and emotions as psychiatry controls its clients' thoughts and emotions - with the help of drugs, ect and indoctrination. In a democracy the single individual's thoughts and emotions are free, disregarded their nature, the individual is free to believe, think and experience whatsoever and however he wants, both in relation to himself and his surroundings. Real democracy would never devalue an individual's self-image or scheme of things as "delusion", it would never devalue an individual's experience of himself and his surroundings as "hallucination", as meaningless "symptom" of a disease.

This is why neurology doesn't like to get mixed up with psychiatry, doesn't show much interest in the so called "mental illnesses", which, as mentioned, would come under neurology's field if there were any reason to believe they really were brain diseases. Psychiatry is a speciality that deals with finding ways to manipulate people's thoughts, emotions and actions for the purpose of gaining greatest possible control and power over them. We saw this more clearly than ever before or after in Nazi-Germany. There are other examples, although not as clear and well-known, such as the CIA's mind control programs, and psychiatry's role in general in openly totalitarian systems throughout history. In fact, it is this control task which delimits psychiatry from neurology on the one hand and the humanistic sciences on the other, and thus legitimates the speciality.

Least clearly this, psychiatry's real, totalitarian interest and task, appears if you can make people in crisis, voluntarily - although..., term and understand themselves as ill, and make them want psychiatry's help, make them want psychiatry to interfere and take over control, so that you, in this way, easily and effectively can cover up your totalitarian ideology and sell it as being a democratic service, part of the health system of a state whose political system goes under the name "democracy". It is quite a feat to get a victim of assault to want the assaults to happen himself. The Nazis in Germany weren't yet that advanced that they would have succeeded in this. They still only concentrated on justifying the discrimination of certain communities, sections of the population, towards the rest of society. Today we're about to have reached the point where this discrimination also is wanted by the discriminated. Not only concerning psychiatry.

That even the most "ill" people, those who are most severely hit by crisis, can be helped without the interference of pychiatry, by using non-psychiatric methods alone, and with far better outcomes than psychiatry's, among others, Laing has proven at Kingsley Hall. That both his and other's (Loren Mosher, John Weir Perry, Edward Podvoll, Bertram P. Karon etc.) ideas and results still today, almost half a century later, are almost completely ignored, tells me something about the society we're living in, and about the political system we're living under, which Ghandi named "nominal democracy" - democracy on paper (and only on paper).

The term and concept of "mental illness" serves, as mentioned, primarily the purpose of discriminating the individual who is named "mentally ill". An individual with a brain disease can't be taken seriously. Neither this individual can be allowed to be responsible for himself which results in paternalism and patronizing. That such an attitude actually is a (sad) reality in today's Denmark, the media's coverage of "the mentally ill" shows time and time again. Often it isn't even considered the least to speak with a member of this community himself when it comes to matters concerning "the mentally ill".

Furthermore, the term and concept serves to clear society of any responsibility in context with an individual's unhappiness in life, in society. Because, obviously, if the unhappiness is due to genes and brain chemistry, society can do nothing about it, and hasn't the slightest responsibility for the problems' emergence.

Last but not least it serves to clear the individual in crisis himself: "If I believe that it is my genes and neurotransmitters that's something wrong with", if I believe I suffer from a genetically caused, chronic and incurable brain disease, "I can do just as little about it as I can do about having brown and not blue eyes", Jakob Litschig (ex-psychiatrist, therapist and psychosis-experienced) says. I only can follow psychiatry's orders concerning medication, and thus leave responsibility for myself to psychiatry.

It can be a huge relief for some people to, via psychiatry's illness concept, be deprived responsibility for their thoughts, emotions and actions. All in all though, such a self-conception only contributes to paternalism and patronizing, and increases helplessness to a considerable amount. Quite often with the result that full recovery as a possibility is excluded beforehand, and therefor neither is achieved. A self fulfilling prophecy, so to speak. And in addition, when taking psychiatry's role as a force of law and order into consideration, the desired result.

Concerning Michalla's remark about private wards, my opinion is that everybody has the right to a such. Especially people who are psychotic need privacy. As far as I am concerned, it would have meant additional pills, if I 'd been asked to share a room with as much as one other person since I couldn't do without the possibility to withdraw when psychotic. Now, psychiatry regards this withdrawal as being a "symptom" which needs to be combated. However, my own experience was that the possibility for withdrawal and undisturbed self-reflection was crucial to my recovery. And I am not alone in this.

Some people might object that more private wards are far too expensive. Yes, if they are located at a psychiatric facility. The single rooms Soteria and projects alike of course provide, are much cheaper than a private ward at a hospital, just as the whole Soteria-model is much cheaper than psychiatry, without being as ineffective as the crisis center Michalla talks about in her comment on my previous post. As mentioned above in context with Kingsley Hall, Soteria and the like are proven to be far more effective than psychiatry. Although not at a "mind control level"... Soteria doesn't control, Soteria liberates.