Speaking Out - Part 1

Hello @Willy. It's obvious you have kept busy. I don't know how to reply, to be honest. I'll just attach my comment to a Critical Psychiatry Blogspot post from earlier this year. Sometimes I just get so frustrated with all the goings on in the 'profession' and psychiatrist's pretensions of trying to do something about it; but an entire career can pass with no change for the better—only for the worse. One would think we lived in the Dark Ages. I had to comment on the ignorance re depression on the psychiatric post as follows:

<https://criticalpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2022/04/blaming-chemical-imbalance-in-brain-for.html>

Relational psychiatry: Blaming chemical imbalance in the brain for depression does not make sense (criticalpsychiatry.blogspot.com)

I hope the URL opens. So many points of view, and very few within psychiatry are correct. Cheers.

@Willy Good to see you.

@Historylover Hey

I tend to find your posts informative and interesting, and for the most part I agree.

The numbers of ITOs and CTOs are significant.

I am careful with language as it can be slippery and have unpredictable consequences when dealing with complex issues, but it also the best tool we have ...

I went to an CTO meeting this week, and we gained an acceptable result (from 52 to 16 weeks). However when the psychiatrist member of the tribunal advanced the ... its like diabetes argument I switched off personally and she lost points thinking I was stupid and had not done science or my own research. There was no point arguing as time was limited and I advanced my approach as 'limited responsible med taking with respect to ongoing awareness of internal and external conditions'. I was there as carer/mum. The report by "treating team" was littered with errors including telling us to go to the wrong address. A bad joke actually. But I am no longer surprised as I no longer hold the MH system as knowledgeable or effective in terms of mental health of my family and society generally.

I am wary of using language like "declaration of war" though I can well understand some people will feel like that. (just personal choice and history).

I also was amused that you called the chemical imbalance view the traditional view, as opposed to a progressive view, as I do not, think that way. I try to be careful about creating binaries and polarising arguments, but not quibbling as I get what you are trying to say. I am careful about equating psychosis with being crazy etc etc. Words evolved to be different to numbers and they each have a place in understanding.

I see it more as changing fashions ... and see the moral deficiency and old religious view as more traditional, with the rise of the sciences and view of the brain as a chemical sponge just one part of an evolving knowledge. Understanding of nervous system and electrical aspect of brain function is newer ... eg vagus nerve etc etc. There has developed a tendency to place "science" on a pedestal like god... so that says a lot about humans their societies. lol.. Cos I did enuff science and hung around with enuff science types, I knew it was not god. I still love it - science ... Wanted to study History and Philosophy of Science at uni but timetabling never allowed it, ha ha. Too busy with work and kids. So now in my old age in the internet age, I can research to my heart's content.

So happy to be involved in push back. Well not really happy ... but you probably do not want more essays from me.

I see the institutional and organisational problems you mention as partly due to funding and partly political forces.... as in trying to capture a bigger audience to justify themselves and wages etc.

Pretty turned off by Pollyanna superficial reassurance assertions generally. It can be offensive when things are not great.

Hello and hugs @Willy , @Historylover , @Appleblossom ❤

A lot to digest here @Willy . There are multiple things I wanted to address, but I probably won't get time to do it all tonight.

Traditionalist vs. Progressive

Reading your section on the traditional and progressive views on mental health, I got a strong sense of a black-and-white undertone. Which view is the right one? Which one is the wrong one?

My own suspicion has long been that there is truth in both views. There are indeed a handful of people who are accurately described by the traditional view. People who have good lives but, for lack of a better phrase, have a malfunctioning brain. I've heard enough testimony from such sufferers to believe that these situations do certainly occur.

The problem is that there is a massive degree of over-diagnosis of such conditions; and people who simply need life help such as set-ups with new social/romantic contacts, relocation, new employment, ect. are instead being subjected to pointless medication, "talk therapy" and even worse abuses.

That crisis of over-diagnosis, and the lack of a proper system to address the problems that the patients actually suffer, is the problem we need to focus on.

Ultimately, I believe that making a hard-line denial that there is any legitimacy to the traditional view will undermine our cause. Because I don't think it will take much effort for the supporters of traditional views to demonstrate that there are indeed cases where it certainly applies.

Progressive Solutions (or lack thereof)

I've become very disillusioned with the endless vaguery in statements being made supposedly in the interest of creating remedies as per the "progressive" view. In particular, a lot of the proposed remedies seem to be only available to people who have some sort of underlying mental condition. People who don't have such a condition seemingly aren't on the agenda to receive any help. If your unemployed because you've got depression, you'll be given a job; if your depressed because your unemployed, there's no help on the horizon for you.

And although there are vague mentions of such help being on the agenda, there is no clear information being laid out as to exactly where a person can go to get this sort of assistance. Is there going to be a list of names and (business) addresses put out at some point, for the therapists who are going to dispense these sorts of real-life help to people who need it? How's the average punter going to know the differance between a therapist who will actually endeavor to fix their crappy life, and a therapist who only wants to endlessly talk about their crappy life?

Despite acknowledgement that, very often it's the crappy state of peoples' lives that make them miserable, I've seen pretty much no evidance that the powers that be have any concrete plans to fix these problems. Which is astounding, as the solutions are (in many cases) immensely straightforward; and could be realized for minimal cost.

My point being that I have qualms about backing the "progressive view" camp, as they seem to say "the right things" only in the vaguest possible terms, and seem to have no solid intentions of actually promoting the straightforward solutions to the problems.

Danger To Society

I think it's important to recognize that when we talk about people not wanting "vast numbers of crazy people to run amok in the community", the issue is far more nuanced then the simple fear that Hannibal Lecter down the street may pounce on me one day and eat my face off.

We are living in a time when half the world are aghast that they have "insane Democrat-types" running around their communities, and the other half are aghast that they have "evil psychopathic Republican-types" running around their communities. The last thing most people want is yet another alien, incomprehensible mindset running around, further distorting the already tenuous rationality of the world they have to endure every single day.

This is an immensely pressing issue for many people. They agonize over it just as much as we agonized over the threat of jihadis at the start of the millenium; and they agonize over it far more, I believe, then they agonize of the scant risk of being the victim of some random act of violence.

Proving that the "vast numbers of crazy people" pose no threat to the community will have to go far beyond showing that they aren't carrying knives in their pockets. Your gonna have to prove that these people won't destroy the framework of society with their votes, and the numerous other ways they shape the look and feel of the landscape. Until people feel they can trust the "crazy people" in that regard, the fear and hostility will never go away.

Back at you, @Shaz51. Hoping all is well with you. ❤️

@Willy

One other thing I wanted to note was the implications in your post that the "traditionalist" view is still held by an overwhelming majority of the population. You do, however, also note that the evidance you've based this assumption on is pretty dated (2007).

I, for one, have been noticing massive shifts against the traditionalist premise that "mental illness" all comes down to broken brains, and increasing acknowledgement that the despair and suicidalness within our society largely comes down to the quality of peoples' lives, and, on a more meta level, the failings of our society. These changes in attitudes coincide with a recent massive public backlash against big pharma, widely believed to be the main villains behind our modern excessive usage of the traditional mental health doctrine.

I stumbled upon a video clip only the other day, where a certain high profile therapist (who I often don't agree with, but who nonetheless agreed with on this occasion) went on at length to clarify that a significant amount of depressed people are actually depressed because they have terrible lives; not because there's something broken in their brains. Not the first time I've heard that admission from a therapist, but it was reassuring to hear again, nonetheless; to know that there is increasing awareness that suffering is very often a life problem, not a brain problem.

Unfortunately, the video went in a weird wishy-washy direction after that, in which said therapist somehow managed to circle back to talking about these real-life problems as if they were brain problems. So, instead of talking about real-life solutions, he starts talking at length about how to fix these peoples' broken brains. Old habits reasserting themselves after taking a few steps in the new direction, perhaps.

This might be something we need to be mindful of; superficial acknowledgements of the "progressive" stance, by people whose deeper thinking is still entangled in traditional views. Perhaps the question of "which camp is ahead?" is far more layered then it seems at first glance.

This may also go some ways towards explaining my previous concern about the absence of any concrete plans/commitments to deliver real-life help to people who need it. Because so many of the people running the show are still somewhat trapped in the mindset that the problems are in the sufferers' brains.

Great convo' @chibam @Historylover @Shaz51 @Appleblossom

I keep thinking about this part @Willy

"Are the Traditionalist Ahead ?

A 2007 survey in the US suggests that more than 80% of the population believe that mental illness was a physical disease caused by an imbalance of brain chemistry. (Ref 2)"

It seems like part of that 80% is people being too pill-happy. Another part would read that question and see it as a way of blaming the condition and not the individual. Which is kind of nice, or at least it's something.

The next leap of understanding just requires opening one's scope of what affects "chemical imbalance" i.e; the chemical imbalance caused by social toxicity and (perhaps more importantly) the restorative powers of social nurturing.

I think that's roughly how most people get past the "medical model" and into better understandings. I'm personally still into "psycho-social" thinking. I think it has potential if we progress using it as a two way mirror.