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Post by Admin on Mar 5, 2021 22:23:41 GMT
It is not the case (as you rather present it) that there is a whole bunch of competing opinions, all on one level, and the job of people of good will is to seek a compromise, or even an "integrated model". There is one opinion that claims domination over all others, that dominates all discussion of the subject, and even controls the language that is used to discuss the subject. That opinion is, of course, the "medical model of mental illness". One must oppose it, not because it is one incorrect or partially correct opinion in a hubbub of incorrect or partially correct opinions, but because of its claim to dominate the entire discourse. At this point I fear that you are almost bound to confuse the discussion by bringing in the term "antipyschiatry", which you will use to denote this opinion that the medical model must be contested, but you will also use it to mean a denial that "mental illness" is real. So please let us avoid that term! (Or else use it only after indicating in which sense it is being used.) That is one useful thing we can do. i have to go out to a meeting - & so i will reply more comprehensively later - i just wanted to say that i agree with your evaluation & assessment of it all. i can envision very easily a World that doesn't have any of the current social / cultural / systemic realities. A World without money, politics, religions, poverty, war, environmental destruction, psychiatry, etc - an entirely different civilization - & i expect that there was once such a civilization on this planet - & is on other planets. The problem is that it isn't the reality on this planet in this present time. i used to be accused on the mental health forum of being rabidly anti psychiatry - i don't think that you can 'win' with any of this.
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Post by Chimera on Mar 5, 2021 22:38:49 GMT
Perhaps I can add something a little more optimistic.
(I have been having a miserable day - thanks to that wretched e-mail that I had to open yesterday - and I have probably been looking too much on the dark side of things.)
In line with my writing of "jigsaw pieces" (on two fronts: my own troubles, and the topic of "mental illness" in general), I suggest trying to keep it small, taking a piecemeal approach, tackling only modest objectives (even if they seem ludicrously, pathetically small), hoping that a large picture may emerge at the end of it (probably through the efforts of many people, at least where large theoretical questions are concerned), but not aiming directly for any grand theory (either manufactured from first principles, or assembled by "integrating" existing points of view).
Don't get me wrong: I love grand theories (the idea of them, anyway!), but they are an end, rather than a beginning.
There might be a precedent in Wittgenstein's philosophical development. (Not that I am a great fan of his, or very knowledgeable about his life or philosophy, although I must have read a couple of biographies at some point.)
But that is itself rather too grand a thing to say!
There might also be a precedent in the development of science. It took millennia for science, as we understand it, to emerge (and I don't have too rosy a picture of the state it's in now, either). In understanding our own minds, in this analogy, we are at a "pre-scientific" stage. It would be a bit much to expect Kepler or Brahe to have a theory of quantum path integration over all topologies in the neighbourhood of a rotating supermassive black hole. (I'm just making this up - it almost certainly doesn't mean anything!)
So we should just be trying to talk clearly, plainly, simply - usually about small things.
Perhaps I should just have said that at the start, and fallen silent.
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Post by Admin on Mar 6, 2021 0:54:34 GMT
So we should just be trying to talk clearly, plainly, simply - usually about small things. Perhaps I should just have said that at the start, and fallen silent. i return personally again & again to my own non duality contemplative practice. Despite getting wound up / stressed / anxious at times, does any of it really matter? On a tiny blue speck in the middle of nowhere / within 'infinity' - within an incredibly short time frame of human life compared to the many 10's of Billions of years of deep time. We are less than Dust, the whole of humanity is a grain of sand within the circle of life. Maybe everything is fine & unfolding as it should. That there is Nothing really to bother about.
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Post by Admin on Mar 6, 2021 3:43:03 GMT
There is already a gigantic, squatting, malignant misunderstanding in place in society, and it has no intention of going anywhere. And here there is another misunderstanding - what one might call a meta-misunderstanding, at the risk of sounding too much like the "Laing" character in Heathcote Williams's play AC/DC! It is not the case (as you rather present it) that there is a whole bunch of competing opinions, all on one level, and the job of people of good will is to seek a compromise, or even an "integrated model". There is one opinion that claims domination over all others, that dominates all discussion of the subject, and even controls the language that is used to discuss the subject. That opinion is, of course, the "medical model of mental illness". One must oppose it, not because it is one incorrect or partially correct opinion in a hubbub of incorrect or partially correct opinions, but because of its claim to dominate the entire discourse. At this point I fear that you are almost bound to confuse the discussion by bringing in the term "antipsychiatry", which you will use to denote this opinion that the medical model must be contested, but you will also use it to mean a denial that "mental illness" is real. So please let us avoid that term! (Or else use it only after indicating in which sense it is being used.) That is one useful thing we can do. Sorry to use the terms - However lets say that the critics - the 'Anti / Alternative' psychiatry / pharma areas are largely right. Lets say that i was right about what i largely argued for some 10 years on the mental health forum & am right about some of what i have argued here - That the entire system is shit & that there are far far better ways of helping people & organizing society, & 'mental illness' isn't what psychiatry says it is. leaving aide if it's possible to get rid of psychiatry / pharma - i do wonder what then? i think that there is still going to be a plethora of 'mental illness', & as far as i can see there always has been. However, maybe on aggregate the majority of people would be far better off without psychiatry / psychology / pharma & a mental health system. i just don't know with it all any more? Regardless of what i ideally wanted / want as treatment, & what my ideal society would look like, it's not reality. Nor is how i see my own life & experiences, what i wanted as treatment, & what i envision as an 'ideal' society the same as a lot of other peoples. Nor is how i see truth & reality the same as most other people. Granted that within a highly advanced & sophisticated society / system / culture there likely wouldn't be the same degree of health & social issues - however again the problem is that we're not in such a society / system. Different people also have wholly different ideas on what their own 'utopian' society would look like - what is Heaven to one person is probably Hell to another. Another problem that i see is that all the 'anti / alternative' camps can't agree on what they want as 'alternatives' to psychiatry / psychology / pharma / mental health system & the current socioeconomic / political systems. Until the whole of humanity comes together to cooperate as one, that may never happen & is likely an impossibility, i don't see any of it all fundamentally changing - i think it will be a case of all the same 'circular' issues, arguments & debates, that there always has been. All the issues in society / civilization will still be there as well regardless of it all. Story about the last 'psychiatrist' - The Simulacra - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_SimulacraFuck knows with it all? i think that everyone lives within their own version of reality - can argue that there is an objective truth / reality / all that is - But humans never have & never will agree on what that is.
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Post by Admin on Mar 6, 2021 3:43:54 GMT
Perhaps I can add something a little more optimistic. (I have been having a miserable day - thanks to that wretched e-mail that I had to open yesterday - and I have probably been looking too much on the dark side of things.) Sorry to hear that you have been having a miserable day.
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Post by Admin on Mar 6, 2021 9:20:48 GMT
Fuck knows with it all? i think that everyone lives within their own version of reality - can argue that there is an objective truth / reality / all that is - But humans never have & never will agree on what that is. Honestly - the only people that i think have it entirely 'right' are the genuinely 'Enlightened' - 'Self / God Realized'. & with regards to genuine 'Enlightenment', i think it's incredibly few people who attain such a state within a fuller sense of it all. Despite all the talk of religion / spirituality in society / civilization, there are incredibly few people historically & currently who i rate as the genuine article in regards to it all.
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Post by Chimera on Mar 6, 2021 9:37:33 GMT
However, maybe on aggregate the majority of people would be far better off without psychiatry / psychology / pharma & a mental health system. I'm screaming again, and literally slapping my own head in acute distress, because the horrible, horrible ProBoards editor has one again destroyed the entirety of my long and thoughtful reply. It is impossible to take frequent protective manual backups when you are in the throes of composition. I give up. I'm really sorry to go on like this, and it's undignified, but I had been having a very painful and exhausting morning, since waking up in distress more than two hours ago, I have been writing at length about one of those painful things (not here - using a reliable text editor), then I replied to several points in this thread as well as I could (each point just briefly, but it added up to one quite long post, over which I took a lot of trouble), and then I was going to go on in another thread to write about one or both of the things that have been troubling me this morning, but now I'm fit for nothing.
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Post by Admin on Mar 6, 2021 9:39:49 GMT
However, maybe on aggregate the majority of people would be far better off without psychiatry / psychology / pharma & a mental health system. I'm screaming again, and literally slapping my own head in acute distress, because the horrible, horrible ProBoards editor has one again destroyed the entirety of my long and thoughtful reply. It is impossible to take frequent protective manual backups when you are in the throes of composition. I give up. i'm sorry to hear that. The functionality of this forum is not great.
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Post by Chimera on Mar 6, 2021 9:54:57 GMT
Telegraphic summary of what I can remember of what I wrote: - I promise I'll try to get around to describing my experience of what happens when those in charge just do nothing. I can't judge whether this is worse or better than the present system, but I can say it's inhuman.
- I'm sorry I wittered on so much yesterday, in what is supposed to be a thread about your plan for this project.
- If I had been less miserable yesterday, I would have been a bit more ambitious. I think I went too far in the direction of advocating writing only about small things, one at a time. I think there is a realistic prospect of attaining a rigorous philosophical overview - without needing to attain Enlightenment! - although, as I said, I'm disappointed by my very slow progress in thinking about it.
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Post by Chimera on Mar 6, 2021 10:00:33 GMT
I started reading The Simulacra, many years ago, but I couldn't finish it. More recently, I tried to read The Man in the High Castle, but I couldn't finish that, either. But as I said in another thread, I have enjoyed several of Philip K. Dick's novels. I think the two I've mentioned are the only two that I started but didn't finish.
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Post by Admin on Mar 6, 2021 10:48:48 GMT
Telegraphic summary of what I can remember of what I wrote: - I promise I'll try to get around to describing my experience of what happens when those in charge just do nothing. I can't judge whether this is worse or better than the present system, but I can say it's inhuman.
- I'm sorry I wittered on so much yesterday, in what is supposed to be a thread about your plan for this project.
- If I had been less miserable yesterday, I would have been a bit more ambitious. I think I went too far in the direction of advocating writing only about small things, one at a time. I think there is a realistic prospect of attaining a rigorous philosophical overview - without needing to attain Enlightenment! - although, as I said, I'm disappointed by my very slow progress in thinking about it.
Share as much as you like - i don't mind. Sorry to hear that you have been feeling miserable, i hope that you feel better soon. It's not nice feeling bad. Part of the Dilemma that i have had is that i feel if i had been far better treated with highly comprehensive integral approaches; maybe i could have healed / recovered far better & possibly medication free. But i can't know that as the comprehensive alternatives have not been properly studied or tried, & i don't have viable access to them. For the past 10 years i have had to personally pragmatically accept the schizophrenia diagnosis / illness / condition & medication as the lesser of Evils within all the current socioeconomic / political / personal / medical realities. i can see all sides to it all as far as it's possible to - however my opinions have gone from 'extreme anti psychiatry' to 'pro psychiatry'. i have also gone in part from some very fringe conspiracy theory areas to a far more mainstream view, especially over the past year. i'm not Conservative / Tory / Republican, however i can also see why people are.
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Post by flyingcarpet46 on Oct 1, 2023 19:12:24 GMT
Such a carefully thought out plan.
Humans beings what we are (imperfect?) our intentions may not always go to plan and differences be hard to reconcile but this is a sound plan.
I'm sorry there are people out to silence you on your other platforms.
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Post by Admin on Oct 1, 2023 20:59:16 GMT
Such a carefully thought out plan. Humans beings what we are (imperfect?) our intentions may not always go to plan and differences be hard to reconcile but this is a sound plan. I'm sorry there are people out to silence you on your other platforms. Thanks. i'm better to try & focus on more stuff off-line. Hope you are well.
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Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2023 19:40:44 GMT
Bit of an update - same story with this Project / Forum going nowhere - i suppose that forums are on the way out now with the internet / social media the way it is.
World / mental health system & treatment seems to be in an even worse state than when i started the Project.
People seem even more entrenched in their own polarised positions & camps.
i'm at a loss with this project - will continue to post things to the forum - But it seems a bit pointless to.
Some people seem to read the forum - But very few post or seem to share the same vision of things.
i really needed other people with the same or similar vision to take the Project forwards, But i can't make people agree with me.
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