Mental illness and parapsychology.

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by Bebelina, Mar 9, 2010.

  1. heliocentric Registered Senior Member

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    Possibly. Either way i dont necessarily have a problem with the notion of 'personality types' the issue for me is the negative connotations that are attached personality categories once you start labeling them a disorder. I think this is why you find alot of aspie/schizoid-pride groups now - people coming together to say: "yes, i agree that i fit into your diagnositic criteria, however i take extreme offense to the idea that i must be treated and cured".

    In the case of the schizoid, this personality type probably has good reason to be doubly pissed off, since in many other cultures and historical epochs he/she would have been far more likely to be branded a 'mystic' or 'brahmin'; possibly with a real active social role to play in the community too. In may infact be the case that the only reason the schizoid tends towards depression in our culture is not due to some inner-disturbance about the 'condition' itself, but rather the fact that the traditional social roles that the schizoid would have once easily acquired have been removed from him.

    Look at someone Ram Bahadur Bomjon (AKA 'Buddha Boy') in his native country he is practically revered as a God, whereas in America or Europe i could well imagine him sat in a dirty bedsit somewhere addicted to meth, feeling bitter, pissed off and alone.

    These are extreme examples im using here obviously, but hopefully the point im trying to make it clear.
     
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  3. heliocentric Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, this is what i was trying to get at in my previous post. The idea that we can treat the 'individual' without addressing environment/peergroup/family (external causes) is probably one of the biggest gaffs of modern psychiatry/psychotherapy. I think regardless of ontological beliefs about existence, it's absolutely necessary to take the holistic approach and treat the individual not as isolated unit of experience, but as one piece in a giant social jigsaw.

    This may all sound suspiciously zen to the western ear "what? no individuals? just webs of social interaction?" But its only when you give up the individual that you can paradoxically begin to treat it.

    Of course all this is easier said than done, effectively this kind of holistic treatment would demand input from the person's family, their friends, or possibly those from their local community. Something which i dont see much hope for in a modern 21st century city. There may of course be some middle ground to be had between client-orientated therapy, and group-orientated therapy, but id be lying if i said i knew what it was. Perhaps the writers of "I <3 Huckabees" were onto something - what you really need is someone to covertly follow you around for a couple of months to see where you might be going wrong, and which relationships might be causing you problems.
     
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  5. PsychoticEpisode It is very dry in here today Valued Senior Member

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    How would all schizoids know that? Psychic ability?

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    I would differ on the subject of depression. I can treat depression, I can't treat psychic ability. The condition of being psychic should for all intents have a way of being proven. Schizoidal tendencies appear with recognizable symptoms yet psychic ability is devoid on all accounts of any. An individual may possess this remarkable skill but can't prove it to a soul. Just one correct psychic claim should be enough to warrant that claim being called a symptom at least. IOW a symptom of psychic ability would be making indisputable claims of a paranormal nature. Nothing of this sort has ever been recorded. IMO they have the skill the same way an psychosomatic individual has phantom pain.
     
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  7. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    We have slowly found out the limits of treating ecosystems as gatherings of individuals. The introduction of the Cane Toad in Australia, for example, where they somehow imagined these delightfully simple Newtonian causal chains - CTs eat beetles, we bring in CTs, beetles go away. No other effects are created by this. Oops. I do have sympathy since things like systems theory are relatively young, but still.

    I don't think we have to contrast the best possible treatment -which probably would have to be global - would be funny to see Mary's face where her bill for treatment includes fees for reforestation in Brazil and public health programs to reduce sugar intake by Russian schoolchildren, let alone her insurance carrier's face.) But once we acknowledge the system, we can immediately sidestep the pathologizing the individual and work with the individual in determining how much environment is brought in and how and how much the client wants to be treated as an isolated monad.

    Also very important is that if we notice a trend towards greater depression in society, this is not seen simply as an opportunity for the pharmaceutical companies but as a symptom of a societal problem. Something is wrong 'out there'.

    Right now the psychiatry/pharma approach is very much analagous to treating everything with analgesics. IOW getting rid of the symptoms.

    There has been some wonderful work done by various family and group therapists and while it's not quite on the I love H, level of observation it is heading in that direction.

    (I liked that movie by the way, but thought the 'philosophy' was just a bit too new age)

    I would love to see a greater trend towards the presumption of normalcy - as a parallel to presumption of innocence. If someone is suffering, that it is first assumed that this suffering is an adaptive response and explored to find its roots - be they in past trauma or something in the environment - then determinations can be made amongst a wide range of solutions.

    Before PTSD was understood - we learned a lot after the Vietnam war and this made the psych professions much better at dealing with childhood abuse, for example - people going through what is really a natural process where the body, realizing it is now much safer, begins to process emotional reactions it could not process earlier when it felt and probably was in great danger. Most PTSD sufferers were treated as having a mental illness, anything from schizophrenia to various affect disorders and were drugged both by themselves and doctors.

    Who knows how many other mental illnesses are normal non-pathological crises.
     
  8. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    Well said.

    Think of how many kids get pathologized for not being able to sit still and having too much energy who would do fine as apprentices, farm hands, hunters, carpenters assistants, etc. Where we got the idea that sitting at a desk, being quiet, facing forward and being a passive receiver for information was a good test of normalcy for children, I will never know. And yet not thriving in this very test can get one a diagnosis faster than it takes to hear the words 'open your mouth and swallow this'.
     
  9. heliocentric Registered Senior Member

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    .

    Proving psychic phenomena is abit trickier i think, since your subject is going to have to do a finite series of 'guesses' you can only ever measure the phenomenon (assuming it exists) statistically/probabilistically. This raises all sort of issues. For example: how far above random chance do i have to get in order to demonstrate my 'psychic ability'? Or on a more trivial level: how many guesses of a dice do i have to get right before chance suddenly makes the transition into pre-determination? You'll never get anyone to agree on this, and this is the real bugbear of psychich research rather than the oft stated claim that no positive correlations have ever been produced (not remotely true).


    Maybe all this is besides the point though. I dont have to prove to anyone the content of my experiences in order to rationally believe in them. Take my experience of talking to my mother last week. Now she might not remember the conservation we had, and since there were no eye-witnesses around and i didnt record our meeting in anyway - for the purposes of strict science the meeting never took place. Does this mean i should give up my belief that it really did happen? Absolutely not.
     
  10. PsychoticEpisode It is very dry in here today Valued Senior Member

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    No guesses, you're either psychic or you're not. Granted, there may be psychic occurrences for an individual that are impossible to prove. If God is talking to you personally then how can that person prove it? God doesn't seem to talk with groups anymore, He justs singles out individuals. Anyway I'm getting off track.

    If being psychic is not an illness then how would you categorize being phobic? Are all phobics psychic? If irrational fears are irrational thoughts then what are psychic thoughts? However I don't wish to put words in your mouth so what of it, do both belong in the non mental illness category? IMO there is no difference between the two and I think that irrationality is a symptom of something that isn't right and if it isn't right plus it pertains to the mental process then we are dealing with a mental health problem.
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2010
  11. heliocentric Registered Senior Member

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    Fine, just as long as you recognise that 'rationality' is essentially culture-bound, and always specific to a particular time and place.
     
  12. PsychoticEpisode It is very dry in here today Valued Senior Member

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    In an irrational thinking culture, rational psychics abound, and they would obviously be specific to a particular time & place. I'll maintain that irrational thinking is unhealthy.
     
  13. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    Again, you really are using this term incorrectly. Mental health judgments should not be seen as something analagous to parking tickets with professionals like mental health meter maids leaving little diagnoses on people. Where there is mental illness, there is severe suffering. The person seeks out help or causes so much trouble to those around him or her that something must be done, but for example prison is not the right option. Believing in any number of things each of us would consider irrational - and each of us having different ideas about this - does not qualify someone as mentally ill.

    And every culture and subculture has irrational portions - iow portions of the belief system that cannot be supported by sufficient evidence to convince a scientist the belief matches reality. In fact, every day, we all make decisions based on intution, cultural categories, hunches, value judgments, moral judgments, aesthetic judgments and axioms that we have decided to believe in

    through non-rational means.

    Even your choice to focus on this issue again and again is a choice amongst many many options. Yet, again and again you choose this one. Logic and science did not lead you to make this choice. You may think these support your belief or lack of belief, but they did not support the choice in how you are spending your time.
     
  14. PsychoticEpisode It is very dry in here today Valued Senior Member

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    What's an illness Doreen? Illness doesn't have to be associated with severe suffering and people do not always seek help, professional or otherwise.

    You say you believe in irrational thoughts from time to time. Why would you believe in an irrational thought?
     
  15. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    Mental illness does. You are still incorrect about this. I am not sure how you arrived at this irrational belief.
    And people whose only 'problem' - from your perspective - is that they believe they are psychic have no need to seek professional help. Just like people who believe in Reaganomics but otherwise are doing fine have no need to seek professional psychiatric or psychological help. You obviously don't believe me on this issue and are clinging to a rather odd, confused, and yes, irrational set of beliefs about mental health. I suggest you try verifying your ideas with professionals where you live.

    I think you need to reread what I wrote. If I see that you can understand the issue I raised, I'll answer this question.
     
  16. heliocentric Registered Senior Member

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    But here's the problem - you cant use the terms 'rationality' or 'irrationality' as if they were fundamental constants - it's not like talking about the speed of light. These are social constructs continually undergoing revision and alteration.
     
  17. PsychoticEpisode It is very dry in here today Valued Senior Member

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    How would you know if the revisions are for the better or worse? Generally, revisions tend to improve the outdated.

    Why are psychics less revered than in earlier times? Is it because we understand more about the human brain, the mind, the psyche? Is there a correlation between lack of this knowledge and the reverence of psychic ability, or the number of psychics for that matter? Yes times change, what was once thought to be true is no longer. It happens in every field of endeavor and if you wish to call it cultural than so be it. Perhaps it is time to close the books on Psychic phenomena (that line ought to be popular

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    )

    I don't even like acknowledging psychic ability since no one has ever shown that they have it. To be delusional, hallucinatory and irrational is a talent? A special skill? I can replicate all of those symptoms artificially. Take a hike out onto the Sahara without any water and just wait for psychic stuff to happen or maybe pop some pills for the same effect. Sorry man, if you are experiencing psychic thoughts then you aren't firing on all cylinders. Prove to me psychic ability exists and I'll retract everything I ever said about it.

    I wish someone kept score back in the old days when psychics were noticeably plentiful. Were they more accurate then? I think they were more of a totally misunderstood novelty. Anyway this is fun.
     
  18. John99 Banned Banned

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    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deja_vu
     
  19. PsychoticEpisode It is very dry in here today Valued Senior Member

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    You're asking a lot if psychic phenomena or ability hinges on deja vu as proof they exist.

    Ever experience saccadic masking? Ever notice that you can get the feeling something is going to happen? Ever hum a song, turn on the radio and there it is? Ever experience phosphenes? Ever see something in motion and then find out it's because you are?
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2010
  20. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    am wondering whether or not to .....uhm...never mind...
    edit: love your writing Doreen...go for it...
     
  21. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    The reason we have most situations of trauma associated with mental health [especially those issues that appear spontaneous in onset] can be deduced from the following rule:


    "To deny the truth of your experience is to destroy your reality"

    The truth of your experience can only be denied at the expense of your reality...

    Our psych wards are full of people being told to deny the truth of their experiences and that is a hideous crime against humanity perpetrated by a severely paranoid society. IMO.
    Whether we understand our experiences or not is not the question but true and real they always are.
    damn it I couldn't resist could I....:bugeye:
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2010
  22. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    example:
    a: "I saw a kangaroo in my back yard yesterday"
    b: "You couldn't have"
    a: "why"
    b: "because kangaroos do not come this far into the city"
    a: "well this one did"
    b: "no it didn't, so you must be hallucinating!"
    a: "am not"
    b: "are too"
    a: "maybe you're right"
    b: "I am right"
    a: "I must be sick"
    b: "yep you must be"

    a: sees the kangaroo a couple more times but no one else see it... and goes to a MD to get a psychiatric referral.
    he attends the psychiatrist..who happens by coincidence to have seen the same kangaroo from his back window... and wondered about his own mental health...
     
  23. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    sorry Beb I think I just killed your thread....
     

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