Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Felix]

You think like an old person.

Yes, ancient in fact, I can remember my last few hundred lives (on a good day).

That is the point, most if not all of the 'primitive' people you extolled have lost the knowledge of the old ways and are left with its pale symbolic reflections, gods and goddesses in name only, which can no longer serve them now in the 21st century. I have met real shamans, they have practical living knowledge, and are not merely colorful picture postcards from a forgotten era.

[GaryLouisSmith]

You think like an old person.

Yes, ancient in fact, I can remember my last few hundred lives (on a good day).

That is the point, most if not all of the 'primitive' people you extolled have lost the knowledge of the old ways and are left with its pale symbolic reflections, gods and goddesses in name only, which can no longer serve them now in the 21st century. I have met real shamans, they have practical living knowledge, and are not merely colorful picture postcards from a forgotten era.

So here we are in the Götterdämmerung, The Twilight of the Gods, blinded by science, waiting for civilization to end. Haven’t we seen this play before?

Oh well, another world or unworld will soon come and take its place on the Great White Way. The show must go on. It just keeps going and going, no let up. I have some ideas about what I want to see next.

[Karpel Tunnel]

No.

Every exorcism was performed by pretty well every religion and each was performed in response to either a viral or bacterial illness or a psychological disorder. There have been numerous medical mistakes throughout history, and they continue to be made today.

Leeches anyone?

Leeches have been making a comeback for decades as a treatment, though not, generally, in the way they were used in Medieval Europe. Of course there are medical mistakes, me I mix responses to health issues. Mental health issues certainly have led to exorcisms. I hadn't heard of indigenous groups using exorcism for bacterial infections and know that they do use anti-bacterial and anti-viral herbs. I can imagine that shamans might think there were interpersonals and spiritual entity aspects to a bacterial infection and also do things that are exorcism-like along with herbal treatments.

Not sure what your 'no' was in response to. All of it?

[Felix]

Greta: At least those practices only lasted for decades, and there were doctors speaking out about those practices at the time.
differntly,

Last I heard electroshock therapy is still being used, just differently: at much lower amplitudes, pulsed waves, etc. If you ask me, it's proof that it is often the medical doctors and not their patients who are mentally ill, as R.D. Laing articulated so well in his books.

GaryLouisSmith: So here we are in the Götterdämmerung, The Twilight of the Gods, blinded by science, waiting for civilization to end. Haven’t we seen this play before?

I suppose, but some say this may be the final curtain or one of the greatest mass extinctions, since climate change is a global phenomenon. Perhaps the "primitive" peoples will be the best equipped to survive.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Greta: At least those practices only lasted for decades, and there were doctors speaking out about those practices at the time.
differntly,

Last I heard electroshock therapy is still being used, just differently: at much lower amplitudes, pulsed waves, etc. If you ask me, it's proof that it is often the medical doctors and not their patients who are mentally ill, as R.D. Laing articulated so well in his books.

GaryLouisSmith: So here we are in the Götterdämmerung, The Twilight of the Gods, blinded by science, waiting for civilization to end. Haven’t we seen this play before?

I suppose, but some say this may be the final curtain or one of the greatest mass extinctions, since climate change is a global phenomenon. Perhaps the "primitive" peoples will be the best equipped to survive.

We will all survive but in a different theater, different play.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Hey, given the choice, I'd take that over the psychiatric version of it any time - a.k.a., electroshock therapy.

Or lobotomies or trepanation

At least those practices only lasted for decades, and there were doctors speaking out about those practices at the time. Exorcisms have been conducted for thousands of years.

As Felix points out electroshock is still going on and with great regularity. But more worrying is that now we have chemical ways of dulling the mind and eliminating emotions. And there is a widespread use of psychotropics based on the pathologization of emotions - which exists not just in psychiatry and pharma, this pathologizing of emotions philosophy, but in the culture at large. Yes, there are people who do benefit, but the use is vastly wider than this, and the benefit is often a 'benifit'. Analogous to given people pain medicaiton for broken bones as the sole treatment.

The sexism and violence of lobotomies is not present in the same way. Now men can also be seen as too emotional and the violence is chemical, more hidden, potentially temporary, though for many it is not.

We are nicer looking technologies.

[Belindi]

There are chemical imbalances that are the direct cause of pain or death.Surges of mood are sometimes caused by chemical imbalance. Chemical imbalances are not reactions to grief. Reactions to grief are balanced when they are tempered by reason.

The criteria that for emotional health therapies are the same as for physical lesions. Alleviating pain, and preventing death.

[Karpel Tunnel]

There are chemical imbalances that are the direct cause of pain or death.Surges of mood are sometimes caused by chemical imbalance. Chemical imbalances are not reactions to grief. Reactions to grief are balanced when they are tempered by reason.

or stifled by reason or 'reason'.

The criteria that for emotional health therapies are the same as for physical lesions. Alleviating pain, and preventing death.

But there are no lesions in emotional pain. There can be stuck patterns, but emotional pain need not be pathologized. And heck, even with physical pain, you do not want to give pain killers for all pain. And with emotional pain this need not be a symptom of any underlying problem in the individual at all. A loved one dies, there is no reason to have as a goal to alleviate the pain. Certainly not with chemical intrusions. You do want to let people know they are not alone and all sorts of social framing and contact. But to pathologize emotions - which is current practice - is the emotions are 'negative' is pathological.

[Belindi]

I absolutely agree, Karpel Tunnel. But I think it's fair to medicalise affective states the sufferer seems permanently attached to and which correlate with , perhaps not with lesions although this too can occur, but with surges up or down of some endocrine or neural secretions.

E.g. Hyperthyroidism. Bipolar disorder. Schizophrenia. Premenstrual 'tension'.

[Karpel Tunnel]

I absolutely agree, Karpel Tunnel. But I think it's fair to medicalise affective states the sufferer seems permanently attached to and which correlate with , perhaps not with lesions although this too can occur, but with surges up or down of some endocrine or neural secretions.

E.g. Hyperthyroidism. Bipolar disorder. Schizophrenia. Premenstrual 'tension'.

I certainly don't close the door on that stuff. I'd like to work from the other end of the cob and see if we could eliminate the patholigization of emotions and the isolating of the individual. We are also cutting off a big feedback about our society our families the culture. If we are reacting so negatively to modern life perhaps we need to change modern life. So I would work from the other end, weaning us of medicating people who likely do not have some major disorder. Also work towards accepting emotions more. Then whereever de-medicating seems to lead to more problems, don't de medicate. Of course this is pie in the sky, given the dominant reactions to emotions out there and the dominant psychiatric models of 'chemical imbalance' and so on.

[Belindi]

I am absolutely with you in that enterprise, Karpel Tunnel.

[LuckyR]

I absolutely agree, Karpel Tunnel. But I think it's fair to medicalise affective states the sufferer seems permanently attached to and which correlate with , perhaps not with lesions although this too can occur, but with surges up or down of some endocrine or neural secretions.

E.g. Hyperthyroidism. Bipolar disorder. Schizophrenia. Premenstrual 'tension'.

I certainly don't close the door on that stuff. I'd like to work from the other end of the cob and see if we could eliminate the patholigization of emotions and the isolating of the individual. We are also cutting off a big feedback about our society our families the culture. If we are reacting so negatively to modern life perhaps we need to change modern life. So I would work from the other end, weaning us of medicating people who likely do not have some major disorder. Also work towards accepting emotions more. Then whereever de-medicating seems to lead to more problems, don't de medicate. Of course this is pie in the sky, given the dominant reactions to emotions out there and the dominant psychiatric models of 'chemical imbalance' and so on.

You've got it backwards. The emotional and medical police don't knock folks' doors down to administer the needed medication. Folks in real (by their personal definition of the word) trouble seek out assistance, perhaps from medication.

[Karpel Tunnel]

You've got it backwards. The emotional and medical police don't knock folks' doors down to administer the needed medication. Folks in real (by their personal definition of the word) trouble seek out assistance, perhaps from medication.

It's been my lucky week for people making up stuff that I supposedly said. I never said that emotional and medical police knock...etc. What we have is a society that has a lot of judgments of emotions. We have advertisements for psychotropics. We have doctors who suggest referrals to psychiatrists when patients mention anxiety or even directly prescribe psychotopics. We have psychiarists who dole out medicines for all sorts of not very serious reactions to stress and modern life as opposed to suggesting other reactions. Who do not tell people the range of side effects. You have pharmaceutical companies do outreach workshops to 'educate' people about their syndromes. WE have teachers, school nurses, school psychologists and social workers diagnosiing children and putting pressure on parents to medicate their children, even though only some of them can diagnose. And certainly refer, often with some serious pressure, the parents to people who can diagnos and have a habit of diagnosing. We have messages in media that people should be medicated. We have norms that judge people who are not up, peppy, feel like other people look in their fg pages and twitter. People are judged for being downers or nervous or negative. We now have grief after death of loved one's, if it goes on too long, being diagnosed. The PR campaingn that peoples emotional problems are caused by chemical imbalances, despite the weak science behind this, has gained tremendous ground and 80 million people in the US are on some kind of psychotropic. And yes, people collude with this, ask for magic bullets, have been trained to view their so called negative emotions and pathology or illness or a disorder when it often is simply a normal reaction to what they are experiencing. Think the unreal expectations being shoved at women via fashion and other advertising, but shirt this to unreal and really detrimental 'images' of what a healthy normal person is.

Yes, there is no medical police forcing medication - though it can get very close to this with children. The PR has done a very effective job. And the great thing about this is now other people will think that your emotions are pathological. So you have the first wave of people who even with some support have trouble with their own pain getting medicated. Then as society views these troubles as pathology, we have more people being judged and judging themselves as in need of medication. Then you have a lot of people who go to professionals, seeking help, and are presented by the 'experts' with a psychotropic answer. And so people already feeling challenged need to be strong enough to say that although this is the expert, the person society and other experts refer me to, I think they are wrong, I think the medication approach is wrong or wrong for me. It is a collective madness. And pure adult victims of this are rare. To some extent they collude with the professionals and pharma. Any solution to this madness would not just be aimed at the professional but must include the public. It would include challenges to the highly profitable paradigm aimed in all directions. And in the end there would need to be cultural shifts to where we all stopped pathologizing emotions.

Am I saying no one should be medicated, No?

I think the amount of medication is absurd, and is especially heinous with children.

[Belindi]

Karpel Tunnel, I agree we need to allow ourselves to feel painful feelings. Might we not also have some whisky ?

Of course we may. However commercialisation of pain killing drugs not excluding alcohol has well known social and individual by-kill, one example about commercial opiods is current news from the US. Medics too often can't provide talking therapies, or happier living conditions such as full employment.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Karpel Tunnel, I agree we need to allow ourselves to feel painful feelings. Might we not also have some whisky ?

Sure. I think there is a difference between non-addictive use of alcohol and other drugs, even illegal ones, even illegal use of legal medications and being told that one's brain needs a chemical fix, with the implicit judgments of emotions.

Of course we may. However commercialisation of pain killing drugs not excluding alcohol has well known social and individual by-kill, one example about commercial opiods is current news from the US. Medics too often can't provide talking therapies, or happier living conditions such as full employment.

Sure. I am not saying stop all shipments of psychotropics to pharmacies today. To solve the problem we need changes in a number of areas. But we can start by pointing out that the model is false and that we really need other types of solutions. Further we can start to treat individual stress, anxiety and depression as information letting us in on the society we have, rather than as signs of individual pathology. Where I would want to do some serious intervention very quickly is the ever growing medication of children.