Rahman may escape conviction for apostacy/death sentence because he's mentally ill?  Hey, it's a face-saver to be sure, but what's really being said here?  That one is crazy to be a non-moslem in Afghanistan?  Or in any Islamic country?  That one is crazy to be a Xtian [hmmm, might be something there].

This reminds me of the bad old days of the evil empire, when dissidents were bundled off to mental institutions, and the not-so-subtle message was that one had to be crazy [or really brave] to protest publicly the policies folowed by the soviet gov't.

I wanna laugh but for some reason it just doesn't seem right.

since psychiatric diagnoses are a measure of social adjustment, it gets everybody what they want - with the possible exception of the dfdt, who may insist on being a freaking martyr for the sake of inflaming the masses...

One has to ask, do we think that Soviet psychs did not believe in what they were doing?  Read the DSM-IV criteria for depression, and ask yourself if a Muscovite should not have been depressed about their lot...or for that matter, what Angelenos should not be depressed.

Americans, of course would never medicate or jail people for political purposes, except for cases as set out in for example, CA W&I sec 5150.   And of course if you're a little boy bored by that funky middleaged teacher and school that's too cheap to afford a few baseballs - if you're a minor, and can't talk back, then they'll drug the shit right out of you....

Had a peculiar conversation with a psych today wherein he pointed out that 20 years ago, most drug studies were NIH funded, but that today, most are privately funded, with the result being that he doesn't feel there's any objectivity left...man, if I couldn't trust the tools of my trade, I wonder what I'd be doing...

You have to realize that the Islamic prohibition on apostasy goes way back; it's nothing new.  It's not a blanket prohibition on other religions; it's merely a prohibition on conversion or heresy.  

So they're stuck in the 17th century, along with our inquisition.  Would that be their right?  Do we want to go to the effort necessary to convert them to our POV, whatever we want to call it?  Are we going to align our national policy on national interest, or religious interest, or gender interest, or what?

Personally, I don't see getting into a religious war.  OTOH, as long as we're there, it's sort of hard to opt out.

Do you really think psych disgnosis is a measure of social adjustment?   That sounds clever, but I think it's wrong.  You denegrate people with a lot of disabilitating disorders as simply not adjusting to society.   My manic depressive brother doesn't have an adjustment problem -- he has an illness.

Harry

for yourself.

Look at the clinical diagnostic standards of the DSM w/r/t this diagnosis.  Note that it is entirely in terms of behavior, identified by comparison to an unstated and subjective standard (iow, we know it when we see it).

A manic depressive may or may not have an organic (neuorological) disfunction, but no organic disfunction can be identified by comparing a person's behavior to an unspecified normal person, any more than you can find a compatible mate thru a horoscope.

TALK TO A PSYCHIATRIST, and ask him if there is anything objective about a psych diagnosis, or if there is an independent valid test for it.  Ask them, if there is, what is it?  They will tell you that nothing is objective, and ignore the fact that a psych diagnosis BY ITS NATURE is a comparison of behavior, and BS about an organic disorder is entirely speculative and unknown, and in many cases, leads us to bark up the wrong tree.

To say that describing something objectively is 'denigrating' a person misses the point.  This is not about "fault"; it is about, what do we know?  Do we believe that, because we feel sorry for a person, and truly believe they cannot help themselves, that they therefore must be sick, ie, we conclusively presume there is an organic disorder?  Or, are we adult and rational enough to admit that, feelings aside, we simply do not know?

Psychiatry does people and society an incredible disservice when they lead people to believe that we know, when in fact, we do not.   It's called lying, and it's lying every bit as much as lying about something like cold fusion.

Your brother may not be able to control himself; and medication may alter his behavior.  Whiskey alters behavior, and in fact was used a medicine within the last century.  That does not mean we know what is going on, and psychs leading people to believe we do know is an abomination, a corruption, a violation of informed consent.

"Sick" is a cultural definition.   You did not need to go to a psych to know there was something wrong with your brother.   IF you cross-examine the hell out of his psych, you will find that the diagnosis is the most precise definition of this sickness; that all of the med studies have holes in them large enough to drive trucks through (a common pattern is the difficulty in distinguishing the effect of the meds from the diagnosis, and others are making false correlations, and simply ignoring that correlation is not causation, and all of this - as a psych admitted to me a few days ago - is corrupted by the financial interest of drug companies).

This does not denigrate patients.  It simply points out that psychs do not know what they lead us to believe; that meds are symptomatic treatment based on unstated judgments and incomplete knowledge.   One of the biggest offenses of psychiatry is to assume control over what are ultimately social issues, and exclude the necessary relatives, employers, etc that are part of any social context, and a necessary part of dealing with a mentally ill, ie, maladjusted person.

Believing your brother is sick, or not, does not help him.  It is essential to understand the nature of our knowledge, and its limits, before we can truly progress, instead of simply shunting these people aside, and dismissing them as "sick", which carries the implication of incurable, and in fact that is a lot of what psychs do, is use the label to dismiss people.

Ask yourself how much deciding your brother has an "illness" helps him - or does it merely make the relatives feel better?  Or, would it be better to be more objective and analytical about our knowledge, and less political?

-- Modified on 3/29/2006 7:06:37 PM

assuming that "maldjustment" assumes voluntary control, ie that your brother could change any time he wants.

I have come to believe that we don't know WTF is going on, and that psychs feed us the "organic disorder" shit for a variety of reasons - one is to make you feel good; another is to get paid (insurance requires a label); another is becuase drug companies skew research in a variety of ways; etc etc.  

And the reason I have come to believe this is because I have struggled for years with my own family member's diagnoses, and found that psychs know very damn little, and they generally know they mislead people, and many will admit it when you put their backs to the wall.   Read, eg Bloch, Psychiatric Ethics, Oxford U press, and do enough online research to translate those concepts into specifics, and if you are a professional with analytic skills (engr, lawyer, etc) you should know when you are getting a responsive answer, and you should press until you get one.

One very good starting question is, exactly how do you ID a neurological disease by a comparison of people's behaviors, without even IDing a standard?  That is the DSM process in most cases.

Most people are simply being labelled, medicated and dismissed.  What is going on is usually gross violations of informed consent, eg leading people to believe that something is known, where it is not.

The more I continue to deal with my own family's diagnoses, the more I believe that we would be better off going and playing ball than talking to a psychrink.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.  I still do not agree.  

I think we could agree that people can have diseases that affect their brain.  This makes sense because we can have diseases that affect other parts of our body.  Any of these diseases exhibits itself by "symptoms".  For some diseases, the symptoms may exhibit themselves in behavior.   Many people who are unable to talk, or who hear voices, or who are psychotic,  ... have problems that can be diminished or eliminated by medical treatment.  That can be a very good thing for the people who have these diseases and who don't like the symptoms.  

Certainly, diagnoses of mental illness have been abused many times to silence behavior that somehow "violates" social norms.  If that is your point, I completely agree with you.  However, abuse of the disgnosis does not eliminate the real fact that mental illness exists and medicine is doing something worthwhile when it treates it.

regards,  Harry

other mental health workers, and the industry itself (including the drug companies) leveling with patients, relatives, agencies and society in general about their reasoning process, and what they do not know, instead of arrogating authority under false pretenses, with disastrous results.

There are 2 common problem areas;  1st, the normal suburbanite being led to believe that their behavior issues are purely an organic issue, even though MDs know this has limited if any truth.  The 2nd problem area is how to deal with the truly marginally competent, socially maladjusted person, and most states have provisions to commit a person involuntarily.

There are clear reasons for these things, and they can also be clearly abused.   Violation of informed consent is the most obvious and common abuse.  Psychiatrists assume the authority to decide when they are doing "no harm" based on their own institutional biases, and they are generally no better at deciding this than the patient himself.

One of the most common questions I ask myself is, why the hell are we taking advice about behavior from a group who do not themselves know how to behave?

the problem arises in knowing when there is a disease.

Eventually, disease is a cultural definition.  The real question is, what do we know, and what do we do about it?   Behavior is normally socially negotiated, and a social concern, and calling it a "disease" suddenly makes the patient an involuntary subject (removes competence), and alienates him from his social group (by making it a purely medical issue) at the time he needs them most.

The problem in calling psychiatric diagnoses a "disease" is that it leads people to believe there is a known organic etiology.   Psychs will admit that there is no known organic etiology of a psych diagnosis, but they nevertheless "believe" (as in religious faith) that they "know" something, when in fact they are treading places that they do not know...they are reduced to saying that because humans are organic, the etiology must be organic, while ignoring the uselessness of that statement, and the fact that they do not know what they are doing with meds, eg, what organic and non-organic side effects they are creating.

I have no problem with informed judgments.  What I have problems with is misinformation; and that is done quite commonly for 2 purposes: to make disturbed relatives (who have the power of attorney) feel better, and to make insurance pay off.   That is corrupt.

There are many people, eg Thomas Szasz, who have been highly critical of psychiatric practice as it has evolved, for these reasons.  Psychiatry has a history analogous to the Inquisition, when you start talking about ECT, castration, involuntary drugging, etc.

Involuntary treatment is never a benefit to the patient, only the people around him.