Paula Kaplan on the Broken Brain Myth


Powerful Psychiatrists 

“A strange feature of many media that are generally considered to be liberal is their ardent promotion, as though it were a liberal attitude, of this outmoded, chemical imbalance or even “broken brain” theory of emotional suffering. They seem to think that it is a liberal view, because everyone has the “right” to take psychiatric drugs to “fix” their chemistry, but they are alarmingly irresponsible journalists to promote that view in the absence of revealing the whole truth about (1) the often damaging effects of those drugs, (2) the absence of proof from well-done research about the alleged cause-effect relationship between the chemicals and the troubling feelings, and (3) the known benefits of approaches that are lower-risk and proven to be helpful for many such kinds of suffering.”

MIND OVER MATTER OR APPLIED PHYSICS?

My husband used to teach math and psysics before he joined me in the weird world of subtitling, so when he made a bed of nails, he started by calculating how close together the nails had to be to make the pressure on the skin bearable.

After some more calculations, we experimented with the brick-breaking stunt.

Which led to the following conversation with a grandchild:
– Granddad, is it true that granny hit you with a sledgehammer?
– Yes.
– Is she going to do it again?

Here are two videos of applied physics in action. And no, the dark flecks on the floor are not blood from earlier experiments, the floor is from 1850, and my guess is that someone spilled tar there.

If you don’t understand what they are saying, it might be because they are speaking Norwegian. He is covering his eyes to avoid getting grit in them.

The next time they used one of the  broken halves, and it was too small to break, so they eventually gave up. But the hammer blows are real.

So … No quantum, no magic, no power of thought, just physics. Which does not make it any less magical … or fun.
  

On scapegoating a part of the problem

I found this article by David Zigmond today:
Adjustment or change? 
Radical issues in psychiatry

Quoting:

“The concept of illness may very often be seen as a way of ‘scapegoating’ a part of a problem so that the presenting patient is labelled, treated and despatched, leaving the forces acting on him unexamined or unchallenged.”

Would you like to share links to interesting stuff?

Steven Pinker: Language as a Window into Human Nature



This RSA amimate is relevant in connection with Martin Luther King’s speech in the previous post; it is about clarity as a weapon against oppression. All kinds of oppression. 

It is also about the need for unclarity as a social lubricant.

It’s up to each of us to know which of these we are using, and to decide consciously which of these we need in different situations.  



Martin Luther King on "Creative Maladjustment"

The Norwegian organisation “WSO” (We Shall Overcome) had a link to

Martin Luther King Jr. on maladjustment” 

in http://forensicpsychologist.blogspot.com

Quoting from the introduction:

Last year, in
honor of Martin Luther King Day, I 
excerpted a large portion of a keynote speech the visionary civil
rights leader delivered at the 1967 convention of the American Psychological
Association, just seven months before he was gunned down and at a time when he
was drawing larger connections between racial oppression and the Vietnam War. This
year, I am excerpting only one short section, but I have made the entire
speech, “The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights
Movement,” available for download (
HERE). It’s 45 years old, but
still remarkably relevant today.
 








Ikkeanbefaling: "Du er forandringen"

I messed up; this was supposed to be in my Norwegian blog.
And I’ve linked to this blog, so here it stays.
It’s a critique of a self-help book.

Jeg kommer stort sett til å konsentrere meg om bøker jeg kan anbefale. Denne tar jeg likevel med her fordi den er relevant i den konteksten av positivitetspushing som har vært diskutert her og i andre blogger.  
Det hadde vært fint å få en tilbakemelding fra Ragnhild Nilsen. Kanskje jeg har misforstått henne helt?
Her er en bokomtale fra nettbutikken til coachteam.no: 
Du holder i hendene dine en sjelden perle, en bok som viser deg hvordan du kan gjøre nederlag til seier, problemer til innsiktsfulle tjenere og smerte til nye muligheter. Verden er stor, men ikke større enn at det du tenker, føler og tar del i påvirker andre, selv om de bor på på den andre siden av jordkloden og opplever natt når du har dag. Med Du er forandringen! introduserer den anerkjente rådgiver, gründer, rettferdig handel-aktivist, foredragsholder og artist Ragnhild Nilsen (Grødal) en universell lov hun kaller for loven om transformasjon. Gjennom 5 trinn viser hun hvordan du kan samtale mer våkent med deg selv og dine omgivelser, gå fra tårer til latter og bli den forandringen du ønsker å se.
Nå tror jeg ikke på universelle lover. 
Og jeg mener følgende: 
Vi blir varme og kloke mennesker av
respekt, verdighet, ansvar og god plass til å vokse og utvikle oss.
Om vi ikke har fått dette som barn,
kan vi gi det til oss selv som voksne. 
Og først har vi behov for å se hva vi ikke fikk. 
Som jeg skrev i ”Jeg var et offer, og jeg er stolt”, har vi behov for å se hva vi har vært offer for.  
Vi har behov for å vite at vi har reagert med sunne forsvar mot skadene som et sykt samfunn har påført oss. 
Og vi har behov for å vite at vi har valgmuligheter: 
Vi kan leve med forsvarene.
Eller vi kan “forandre” dem uten å se hvor de kommer fra, slik Ragnhild Nilsen synes å foreslå.
Eller … men det skal jeg komme tilbake til. 
Slik jeg ser det, er ”Loven om forandring” et eksempel på hvordan trossystemer kan hindre oss i å gi oss selv respekt, verdighet, ansvar og god plass til å vokse og utvikle oss. Aller først ved at de i utgangspunktet benekter det vi har
vært ofre for:
“Du er forandringen” av Ragnhild Nilsen står det:
Du
ba om styrke, og du fikk motgang du måtte gjennom.
Du
ba om visdom, og du fikk problemer du måtte løse.
Du
ba om kjærlighet, og du fikk mennesker du måtte elske. 
Du
ba om hjelp, og du fikk muligheter du måtte velge mellom.
Du
ba om midler, og du fikk talenter du måtte bruke.
Du
ba om en perle, og du fikk et sår du måtte lege.
Jeg blir kvalm av dette litaniet. Skikkelig uvel.
Fra min synsvinkel føyer det seg inn i en lang rekke med
skadelige pedagogiske virkemidler som er blitt formidlet via religion og
politikk siden tidenes morgen. Og i den senere tid har psykisk helsevern og
alternativbevegelsen/New Age også gjort seg til nyttige idioter for det Alice Miller kalte “den svarte pedagogikken”. (Sirenia har en fin artikkel om den her) Riktignok bygger ikke den moderne versjonen på straff, men den synes å være like solid tuftet på benektelse som den alltid har vært. 
Samtidig er jeg overbevist om at de
aller fleste som livnærer seg ved å hjelpe andre, gjør det de mener er riktig,
med de aller beste motivene.
Jeg vurderer ikke mennesker ut fra motivene deres. Jeg
vurderer det de gjør.
Og jeg vurderer et budskap etter hva det formidler.  
For å vise hva jeg mener, skal jeg forandre formuleringene i
”Du er forandringen” til et budskap jeg mener er konstruktivt. Dette er det tredje alternativet jeg skrev at jeg skulle komme tilbake til: 
Du fikk
motgang du måtte gjennom.  
De
som ga deg motgangen har ansvar for at de ga deg den.
Nå eier
du motgangen.
Og hva
du gjør den til, er ditt ansvar.
Du fikk
problemer du måtte løse.
De
som ga deg problemene har ansvar for at de ga deg dem.
Nå eier
du problemene.
Og hva
du gjør med dem, er ditt ansvar.
Som
barn trengte du trygghet og kjærlighet, og du utviklet forsvar da du ikke fikk
det.
De
som ikke ga deg trygghet og kjærlighet har ansvar for at de ikke ga deg det.
Nå eier
du forsvarene dine.
Og hva
du gjør med dem, er ditt ansvar.
Du
trengte hjelp, og det fikk du ikke.
De
som ikke ga deg hjelp da du trengte det, har ansvar for at de ikke ga deg det.
Nå eier
du konsekvensene.
Og hva
du gjør med dem, er ditt ansvar.
Du
hadde styrke og talenter som du ble hindret i å utvikle.
De
som hindret deg i det, har ansvar for at de hindret deg i det.
Nå eier
du konsekvensene, og styrken og talentene er fremdeles dine.
Og hva
du gjør med konsekvensene, styrken og talentene, er ditt ansvar.
Du fikk
sår.
De som
ga deg sårene har ansvar for at de ga deg sårene.
Nå eier
du sårene.
Og hva
du gjør med dem, er ditt ansvar.

Jeg slutter her. Jeg har litt smått med skjeer, som jeg skrev i forrige innlegg, men dette innlegget har verket seg ut i løpet av dagen. Jeg setter alltid pris på tilbakemeldinger, også av den uenige sorten, kan ikke love å svare straks, og kommer til å svare så fort jeg har anledning til det. 

THE WALL OF CRAP THEORY

Reposting this, as the original post is acting weirdly.

Maybe “Operation Beautiful” can be seen as a decrapping process? I have a feeling that many of us see crap when we look at ourselves in the mirror – and have been brainwashed into thinking it belongs to us.

Or we spend our lives shying away from mirrors in fear of only seeing crap.

zingerella wrote an article on Livejournal some time ago that I have found very useful. I’m copying it here, with her permission, as it fits so well in with the main theme of this blog. Here it is, in Zingerella’s own brilliant words:

THIS CRAP IS NOT MY CRAP

A long, long time ago, a friend took me to Alateen. She and I had bonded, in part, over the substance-abuse problems in our respective families, and she’d found a lot of good in the program. It didn’t take with me, long term, but it didn’t do me any harm, and some of the people I met there had some useful things to say, from their experience interacting with their own messed-up families.

The Wall of Shit theory is perhaps the most useful thing I took away from Alateen, and I don’t think it’s an official part of the program. Here’s how it goes:

Throughout life, everyone has a certain amount of crap hurled at them. Some people get more crap, some people get less crap. Some people, the lucky ones, also get issued shovels, and spend their formative years being shown how to garden and constructing gardens in their hearts. So they’re well equipped for dealing with the crap life throws at them. Sometimes it builds up, but they have their shovels, and use them and the crap to fertilize their gardens, and it’s more or less okay.

Other people get only crap. They get crap from a very young age, and there’s nobody to show them how to deal with it, because the people in their lives are dealing with their own crap, and throwing crap all over the place. So it builds up, in layers around their heart. After years and years of crap, their hearts, which may be beautiful, are pretty much surrounded in crap. Anything they try to send out is either trapped behind the wall of crap, or if it manages to squeeze out, it emerges covered in crap, sometimes to such an extent that it’s impossible to recognize as anything that might ever have been beautiful. The same thing happens to anything that other people try to send in: if it gets in at all, it’s covered in crap, and the person wonders why the world is throwing more crap at them. Because the crap is so thick, nobody can tunnel through from the outside, to find the beautiful heart. People get lost, and the crap sticks to them, and if they emerge at all, they too are covered in crap.

You can’t really blame people for not wanting to be covered in other people’s shit.

Sometimes, if the crapped-upon person can learn to recognize the crap, he or she can begin to reach through it, or learn to look for the openings. If a person’s spent their entire life surrounded by crap, however, they don’t always know to look for anything else—how should they? So you have people on both sides throwing love and kindness and whatever at a wall of crap, and people on either sides of the wall wondering why the people who profess to love them are giving them only crap to deal with.

Throwing more love at the wall of crap often doesn’t do anything, because the person inside all the crap simply can’t receive love that isn’t covered in crap.

There may be one or two little tunnels through the crap, and something may get through these, but, of course, they’re hard to find, and not entirely stable, and surrounded by still more crap. So even if you find a way through the crap, for some love to get through, it’s not going to be easy or pleasant to get it to the person inside the wall of crap.

The person who explained the Wall of Shit theory couldn’t tell me what to do about other people’s crap. He didn’t know if one could do much. Over time, I’ve learned that, when it comes to other people’s crap, my choices are pretty limited. Since the CUP (crapped-upon person) can’t see their own crap, and doesn’t know that they’re throwing crap at me, I can merely decide how much crap I’m willing to endure for the sake of whatever beauty I can see shining through the crap. I can shovel away from the outside, but there’s never really any way of knowing what’s inside the crap, or if I’m even digging in the correct direction. If I can find the tunnels, I might be able to get a shovel to the person inside, but after that, it’s up to them to dig their way out.

They have to dig their way out, or tell me how to find the tunnels, and accept that once I get to them, I may not smell like roses.

See, I knew, when I was a teen, that my dad really cared about us, and really tried to love us. But his love, even when he wasn’t drinking, was sometimes kind of crappy. And I would try to love him, and it would feel like nothing I did was right, like he wasn’t seeing me. Understanding that his own rather messed up childhood, his drinking, and his dysfunctional marriage with my mom had given him way more crap than he could ever hope to shovel through meant that I wasn’t the one sending bad love.

Since my Alateen days, my dad and I have learned to interact a bit better. I’ve learned to keep a cloth on hand, for wiping crap off of things, and not to expect him to send me bright, shiny love. If he lectures me about my professional life, it’s not because he thinks I’m utterly incompetent—he’s trying to help me, and I don’t have to listen to all his advice. He’s getting better at finding paths through the crap, too, and I think he’s not feeling completely defeated all the time, the way he did with my mom. And being grown up means that I just don’t have to deal with his crap all the time, anymore. I can walk away, and say “This crap is not my crap.”

I’ve walked away from other CUPs—people who were so far behind their walls of crap that I couldn’t hope to find them. People whose walls of pain and anger and other emotional ordure meant that no matter how much I wanted to love them, I could send them only things covered in crap, and they could respond only with more pain that I would send them crap. I mean who needs more crap? Their crap, however, is not my crap.

Right now, nobody in my life seems to be throwing crap at me. So it’s easy to pitch in and help the people I love shovel the crap that comes their way, if they need it, and spread it around to see what grows.

Comparing a Diagnosis of Cancer and Psychiatric Disorder

In Critical psychiatry  I found a link to an article that fits right in with my previous post, “The most destructive force …”

Comparing a Diagnosis of Cancer and Psychiatric Disorder

Amongst other things, John McCarthy wrote:

“As I progressed and formed a relationship with my team of doctors, I realised something about the whole series of events and I asked my admitting doctor who carried out my original examination when he was probing my stomach and my back with his fingers, did he realise then that I had a tumour?

His answer was “yes, but I had to have all the tests carried out before I could stand over my opinion”. What we have within psychiatry is what I can only call an arrogance that allows the doctors opinion to be accepted as medical science and since I began campaigning a number of years ago, I have met so many people who have been severely damaged by the lack of science behind that opinion.”



The most destructive force …

Edited on Jan 12th



 Theodore Sturgeon, in his postscript to “The Image of the Beast” by  Philip Jose Farmer: 



There is a vast number of honestly simple-minded people who can, without hesitation, define:


pornography 

God

right

evil

liberty

law and order
science fiction 

communism

freedom

honorable peace

obscenity

love


and think, and act, and legislate, and sometimes burn, jail, and kill on the basis of their definitions. These are the Labellers, and they are without exception the most lethal and destructive force ever faced by any species on this or any other planet…”


Theodore Sturgeon forgot “mental illness”. 

Mental Health Labellers have the power to 
think, and act, and legislate, and brainwash and medicate, sicken,  incarcerate, and kill on the basis of their definitions. 




I prefer to assume that they are all doing this with the very best of intentions, because they are convinced that they are helping people in the best possible way.


This assumption is extremely liberating, as I don’t have to waste time on considering their motives, and can concentrate on what they are doing, which is …


… to 
think, and act, and legislate, and brainwash and medicate, sicken,  incarcerate, and kill on the basis of their definitions.
 




I am extremely critical of Mental Health Labellers.



And I have written about helpers who help.