@Historylover wrote:
@chibam Sorry to hear about the closure of the submissions. Another half-hearted 'attempt' by those in power to make it appear that they are doing something. Appearance is everything - besides, they are doing fine themselves.
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I will look into the link you provided later. It will be interesting to read how productive they were striving for it to be. How exactly the system would benefit. Three weeks speaks volumes in my opinion. There is no excuse for a half-hearted attempt.
Well, I don't know whether the short timeframe indicates "half-hearted", or "urgent". I guess "half-hearted" is the pessimistic assumption and "urgent" would be the optimistic one. Maybe "recklessly urgent" lies somewhere in the middle; poor execution driven by the best intentions. I've always found it quite wearying to be pessimistic, so I tend to lean towards a more optimistic interpretation of their motives. Perhaps more fool me.
@Historylover wrote:
How can they fix this system? Psychiatrists would have to change their ways and I can't see that ever happening. Such a lucrative trade.
I agree, but a lot of the output I've been reading lately seems to completely circumnavigate that challenge. The emphasis isn't on changing the broken therapists, but rather on redirecting the patients to better services that tend to their true needs. It's also upon giving the patients more power to direct their own treatment, and for providing patient-centered advocacy for those who have difficulty expressing their own wishes.
So rather then trying to fix the deeply-rooted ugliness that runs through the therapist workforce, the emphasis seems to rather be upon rendering that evil as powerless as possible.
There's also a notable push for patient-advocacy organizations to be given a great deal more influence over mental health system policy. So the future fine-tuning that needs to be done to correct the system in the long-term sense will (hopefully) be done by the right people - patients/former patients & their advocates.
Obviously all this is very much still a work in progress, but I've been very impressed with how all the recent steps by the government seem to predominantly be massive steps in the right direction. Obviously, it's not perfect, but it is certainly impressive and encouraging.
@Historylover wrote:
In my observation I find that society is comprised of those who are allowed to succeed and those who will not be allowed to - despite having all the right attributes - always getting second prize, or none e.g., when their work is so much better. It would change the pecking order to fix this system. Throw the balance of society into a correction . There are the winners and the losers and the winners will do everything in their power to maintain the status quo. People talk about ' a fair go'. There is no 'fair go'. In my opinion.
Well now we're getting into very complicated territory - such as how we each define "success" and "fair go", and perhaps most importantly, "kin" and "home".
I think that deep down, everybody just wants to live in a society that reflects their own ideals; a land that truly feels like home, because it reflects themselves. So we seek to empower and support those we recognize as being robust protectors of those ideals; people we can entrust to maintain the identity of our home, ideally in perpertuity.
But unfortunately, we live in such a muddled world with so many ideologically differant beings mixed together in geographical proximity, that we find ourselves having to suppress or drive away people who are deeply incompatable with our own character, and the character of our home. To see them rise in power presents serious risk that the identity of our home will be corrupted and even ultimately destroyed. And nobody who is fortunate enough to live in their true home ever wants to see that home destroyed. Not in their lifetime; not in the foreseeable future. We want to see our homes flourish and endure, so that our future kin: people who think and feel just like us who won't be born until after we a re long gone - will have a homeland and kindred community themselves.
IMHO, it's not an injustice that some people are fortunate enough to live in their true homeland, and vigorously defend that homeland from corruption from people who are incompatable with it. The injustice is that the rest of us are misplaced into environments that are deeply incompatable with ourselves; environments where we are "born losers" because we are at odds with the character of that environment. And it's an enduring injustice because we currantly have no mechanism for chanelling people towards their true homes and true communities.
I don't have a problem being some peoples' characterization of a "loser", a contaminant that they need to dilligently keep out of their boardrooms and parliamentary chambers, so as not to corrupt their homeland. I only have a problem with the fact that I never get to meet my own kin; people who would recognize me as a welcome asset to their own team, and a trustworthy defender of their own homeland, it's character and it's future.
But as I say, it's complicated territory and so what I've just said is a massive over-simplification and probably a little OT, too.
@Historylover wrote:
You say that you don't understand how people can latch on to an ideology which has such a major impact on them - as a patient, that was me! I went in to treatment very depressed and met a psychiatrist who seemed to have his own act together and who also seemed to know what he was doing. We had an immediate rapport. I had never had that before - with anyone. I was younger then and not so enlightened. I thought people were intrinsically good and that relationships were a matter of you either liked them or you didn't. I wouldn't have dreamed that we can't even trust our doctors! They have the upper hand and we are mostly ignorant and at their mercy. And until we learn better - so trusting.
I was probably pretty unkind/unfair with my commentary in that last post. I've always been a sceptic, even since I was a little kid. So when my therapist started saying things in our 2nd or 3rd session that sounded really terrible, it immediately triggered my defenses. Ultimately it wasn't enough, and too much of her crap seeped in to my mind anyway; but it could've been a lot worse had I been inclined to accept everything she'd said to me.
Even so, I, like you, have fallen in to the trap of trusting the wrong people to repay trust and friendship with return friendship. In my case, that trust was betrayed by other people, not my therapist. But the dynamics seem similar.
@Historylover wrote:
I read so many of these posts and see so much suffering. How do those who can help turn a blind eye to it? No empathy. No compassion. No conscience. No desirable human traits. They are themselves very damaged, empty 'souls'.
Very, very true.
They were only open to responses for about 3 weeks, which I thought was a dreadfully brief span of time to collect input on a major policy document. But apparently they want it to be all wrapped up and done by the end of the year. I think it's all about getting on top of all the coronavirus depression and suicidalness as soon as possible.
We can only hope good things will come of it all.
