Call Out: PsychOUT: A Conference for Organizing Resistance Against Psychiatry

Timebandit is female actually

There are jewish scientologists

And we dont normally ascribe motives to other babblers, especially when they have a negative connotation and are just designed to insult someone while trying not to get banned, again

Bacchus wrote:

Timebandit is female actually

 

There are jewish scientologists

 

And we dont normally ascribe motives to other babblers, especially when they have a negative connotation and are just designed to insult someone while trying not to get banned, again

I did not know that TB was a female, and I am sorry if I hurt her.

Ryan seemed very upset. and I was merely trying to help Ryan get through the frustration of dealing with TB's viewpoints on this thread, and nothing more.

Serious thread drift here - not to mention continued personal attacks, insinuations, etc.

For those of you who wish to discuss alternative medicine vs traditional, either find an existing thread about it or start a new one.

This thread was initially a notice about a conference (long since over), but the conversation about psychiatric survivors and abuse in the mental healthcare system is an important one, and we do a disservice to survivors and others who may identify differently by ignoring the issues and pursuing our own agendas.

I want to see a topically relevant discussion that is sensitive and respectful of people's experiences and opinions. For those who have no personal experience and/or knowledge of the issues, I would ask that you listen well and ask sensitive questions. Please be aware that some people may have triggers and those engaging in the discussion need to be aware of that.

If the thread degenerates again into an off-topic pissing contest, I'll have to close it.  If you simply want to go off-topic, open another thread.

Thank you.

I wouldn't expect you to 'be sure' Caissa given your silencing "are you okay?" in the other thread

and I don't have Goggles patience to freely give of themself in educating others as to why what was said is hurtful, in the same moment they and their community are being assaulted

I maintain there was never any thread drift

Caissa can't possibly not have seen post #256, so he's probably working to get the thread shut down, which he's done on 9/11 threads as well. Again, the people who are havinig a respectful discussion suffer for the actions of a few.

Rebecca, I would urge you, rather than shut  the thread down, to recognize who are the primary antagonists in this thread and shut them down instead,

Caissa wrote:

I read #256, jas. I'm glad to see you did so as well. My opinions are based on my experience with psychiatrists and the mental health care profession.

As someone diagnozed with a psychiatric problem?

Quote:

I think I am as entitled to argue them as vigorously as who hold a different set of opinions.

Not in this thread, you're not. Indeed, I believe Rebecca was suggesting that nobody, not even Goggles, should continue to proselytize for or against any particular form of therapy.

jas, I'm not going to single people out in this thread as antagonists - that isn't productive.  And while I don't want to speak for Caissa, there is a difference between expressing a different opinion or relating a different experience, and assuming all opinions that diverge from one's own are wrong.  We see a lot of this kind of "I'm right and you're wrong" kind of discourse on babble, and I think it not only shuts down discussion or forces it to conform to one particular view, it usually degenerates into hostility.

So, if we can get back to the issue - survivors of psychiatric abuse. I won't encourage anyone to share particulars, unless you want to to illustrate a point, but I get the sense that the stigma of mental health is weakening, however slightly, which may lead to better support and care. Opinions?

I think some of the stigma is disappearing although I don't think all things in the DSM are treated equally. There is very little understanding of most mental health "disorders" and when something senstational happens in the news we take two steps bacwards in societal understanding. I'm off to speak to a nursing class on an unrelated topic.

I'm a little speechless right now, so maybe I'll stay that way for now.

I would simply ask Rebecca to look at your post at #256, and then look at Caissa's post immediately following at #257.

I'll quote the relevant passages here in case you don't get to it right away:

Rebecca West wrote:

For those of you who wish to discuss alternative medicine vs traditional, either find an existing thread about it or start a new one.

... we do a disservice to survivors and others who may identify differently by ignoring the issues and pursuing our own agendas.

I want to see a topically relevant discussion that is sensitive and respectful of people's experiences and opinions. For those who have no personal experience and/or knowledge of the issues, I would ask that you listen well and ask sensitive questions.

Immediately following this:

Caissa wrote:

Scientifically unsubstantiated quackery is being advocated in this thread and timebandit is labeling as exactly what it is.

You mean attitudes and terms like the person that said "But you know what, the "scientific" ones are the "quacks"?

.

When I resurrected this thread from three years ago, I was quite taken with the article I had linked in the OP. Very relevant for our discussion here.

Quote:

This was the startling result of three large international studies carried out by the World Health Organization over the course of 30 years, starting in the early 1970s. The research showed that patients outside the United States and Europe had significantly lower relapse rates — as much as two-thirds lower in one follow-up study. These findings have been widely discussed and debated in part because of their obvious incongruity: The regions of the world with the most resources to devote to the illness - the best technology, the cutting-edge medicines and the best-financed academic and private-research institutions - had the most troubled and socially marginalized patients.

So far the only people to comment on it, then or now, have been remind and Revolution Please. Not sure if it's because Ethan Watters also co-authored a book supposedly debunking recovered memory therapies.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

 I think from reading this thread that two important parts of any effective strategy for dealing with mental illness are good nutrition and a strong community.

I agree with that completely, and I'd add that the worst part of the pathological behaviour is on the part of the rest of us - not those labelled as mentally  ill.

That said, I recognize the evidence which says that some conditions are most effectively treated with drugs.

jas wrote:

Thanks, Krop. Another point this article makes, which touches on some points Rebecca was making:

Quote:

Cross-cultural psychiatrists have pointed out that the mental health ideas we export to the world are rarely unadulterated scientific facts and never culturally neutral. “Western mental-health discourse introduces core components of Western culture, including a theory of human nature, a definition of personhood, a sense of time and memory and a source of moral authority. None of this is universal..  ...The problem is the overall thrust that comes from being at the heart of the one globalizing culture. It is as if one version of human nature is being presented as definitive..."

To give you an example, someone in this culture who says they hear voices will be called a schizophrenic and placed on medication. Someone from a different culture who reports the same thing will be asked, "who were the voices and what did they say?"

Catchfire wrote:

This is absolutely not true. Demands or deploying guilt to contrive confessions out of people to share their experiences with psychiatry or other mental health workers, on either side of the couch, so to speak, are unequivocally against babble policy. I take them very seriously. jas, please stop that line of argument now.  

If Caissa is going to make blanket declarations about treatments that others have found success with, we need to know which side of the couch he's coming from:

Quote:

My opinions are based on my experience with psychiatrists and the mental health care profession. I think I am as entitled to argue them as vigorously as who hold a different set of opinions.

Except Caissa isn't arguing his "experiences". He's declaring something to be "quackery", which is essentially accusing a poster in this thread of the same thing. Based on what experience of his? He doesn't say. This is what should be against Babble policy. Sorry that the mods are having such a difficult time with this. I can't really imagine why.

Catchfire wrote:

jas wrote:

Caissa, if you're going to claim that you too should have a voice here because you've had experience as a psychiatric consumer then I believe you do need to divulge this, as others here have done.

This is absolutely not true. Demands or deploying guilt to contrive confessions out of people to share their experiences with psychiatry or other mental health workers, on either side of the couch, so to speak, are unequivocally against babble policy. I take them very seriously. jas, please stop that line of argument now. 

I agree with Jas.  I honestly feel that the mods are trying to re-define what is allowable for psychiatric survivors to discuss.  I feel that there is a pro-western based medicine bias by the mods who are allowing those who quite possibly work within the medical system to have their anti-alternative, or anti-old school mainstream medicine attitudes not only allowed but for them to take over the discussion.  I feel that the mods are playing the namby tamby middle of the road role that extreme opinions on boths sides are unwelcome and that doctors and psychiatrists with their meds have a valid and legitimate scientific basis to do theri jobs as they see fit.  That is exactly opposite of what the nature of this thread is about.

I feel that if you work within the system and want to discuss pro psychiatric discussions, then set up your own thread.  If you have had little to no history of psychiatric diagnosis or medicalization, and you want to say that you believe that psychiatric meds have their place in medicine. then explain why you think so based on your own personal experience, or go elsewhere, and if your reason is because your neighbor's best friends' nephew's cousin had mild depression and didn't feel well and medication made him feel better, then go elsewhere, because people who have had depression of any magniture and have taken anti-depressants at some point in their lives are not the people who this thread represents.

This thread is also NOT about 'your GP has more of a human touch and can dispense the same drugs more humanely which will make you feel better" kind of thread either.

This thread is for people whose lives have been ravaged by mainstream psychiatry and an entire medical system and society that doesn't want to hear about the harsh realities of the drugs and other treatments, and would rather silence these horrors and play the middle road than to take these issues seriously, and mods included.

(edit.)

That means also that the  'yes nutrition is very valid to talk about as long as it is within the limits of what is acceptable to mainstream medicine that people get their nutritional needs met simply by eating a healthy diet alone' argument is as far as psychiatric survivors can go to discuss proper health care reform for people with severe psychiatric illnesses. People who don't know, have never read anything on the subject, and don't ever intend to read anything on the subject are playing the expert role on this to discredit healthy and wise alternatives to the existing treaments which are shoddy at best and leave people with very toxic consequences.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

That said, I recognize the evidence which says that some conditions are most effectively treated with drugs.

Oh really??? What evidence?

FYI, MAOI's a type of antidepressant, means...MONO AMINE OXIDASE INHIBITOR.  Mono means single.  AMINE means any compound produced within the body which has an amine ending on this chemical chain. Dopamine is an amine.  Epinephrene is an amine. Epinephrine is a stress hormone produced by the adrenal glands.  OXIDASE INHIBITOR.  Vitamin C is a powerful anti-oxident. Medical doctors discovered in the early 50s that when epinephrine mixes with oxygen, it produces hallucinogenic compounds, and that high levels of vitamin C and B3 can counteract this chain reaction and that the two nutrients combined also has powerful antidepressant qualities.

My question is, did the drug companies actually take this research seriously, and produced a compound with a similar chemical structure, but different enough for them to patent, and then work to discredit this hypothesis?

The only difference between the two is that MAOI's being unnatural to the body with the patentable compounds have toxic side effects, and that the former are completely natural to the body and are safe.

I usually find that the people who support mainstream medicine's evidence based style usually do not comb beneath the surface to find out exactly what it is they are supporting and defending.

(edit.)

They are also implying that despite the severe toxicities which cause harm and mediocre benefits of these psychiatric medications, that there are no valid alternatives out there which can effectively compete with these dangerous drugs, alternatives which are safer, more effective, and cheaper than anti-depressants and major tranquillizers.

Catchfire wrote:

I'd also like to point out that your posts in this thread have been fulsome and prodigious, and no moderator has done anything to curtail their length or quantity.

Our policy so far has been to allow this conversation to take its own turns, but to keep the participants safe. Personal attacks have been made by several here, which is natural given the personal nature of the discussion. They've been called out, but only minorly. Other than that, the discussion has been happening apace. I'm sorry if you disagree with how we've handled this heady discussion, but I think you've had the opportunity to make your position abundantly clear, and have received a great deal of support from other babblers. The only thing you won't receive is some kind of official endorsement of your position. No such endorsement, for any position, will be forthcoming.

I have never asked for an official endorsement of my position from anyone.  There are many people who have had their lives ravaged by psychiatry. I feel that I am a survivor of psychiatry.  I feel that I have found a way around the drugs that is safe, effective and affordable, but that because we are dealing with interests much bigger than ourselves, these effective alternatives are not being allowed an opportunity to be taken seriously.

If I am lengthy and pushy, and yes, I have been dominant, it is because I have researched this for close to 15 years. I have tried it myself. and I have had to read extensively over the years try to make sense of all these issues to find out why it all happened to me.

Goggles Pissano wrote:

6079_Smith_W wrote:

That said, I recognize the evidence which says that some conditions are most effectively treated with drugs.

Oh really??? What evidence?

Goggles, I have not said anything criticizing your position or your choice of treatment.

I was talking to kropotkin (and agreeing with him), and I felt it necessary to qualify that with my opinion that there are times when drugs are the best treatment.

But I will not get into that discussion with you because I see it as going around the same counterproductive mulberry bush we are trying to avoid. And frankly, I have no interest in going there. I am trying to be supportive of you. Please let me do that while holding my own opinion.

OK Ryan, I'll try to be nice to others.  I'll put on a happy face, and try to be congenial. Nobody will even be able to recognize me, I'll be that nice.

ryanw wrote:

I'm saddened by the lack of restraint by others,  

I do think this is a problem not just in greater society but here on Rabble/Babble. 

Not to pick on Catchfire or to drag on about mod issues in this thread, but it is somewhat relevant to this topic. He commented that the mods' job is to allow this discussion while keeping people safe. But how is he doing that when he's allowing others, who won't declare whether they have any personal experience on the receiving end of psychiatric treatment, to come into this thread and tell someone who does have that experience that what she is talking about is "quackery" or is "unsubstantiated", when she's not only speaking from a position of personal success with it but has also gone to considerable lengths to show substantiation? 

How is that keeping people safe here?

It's true that the thread is not actually about orthomolecular medicine, so there's no need to spend great tracts of text defending it or trying to tear it down. I wonder if Goggles has gone on at length about it partly because she feels the need to defend it here? I don't know. But we see this dynamic over and over here, where people who claim to speak for "science" come in and try to shut discussion down using labels like "quack" and "tinfoil hat". This, quite plainly, is bullying. And it's usually only when the recipients of these comments quite naturally respond in kind that the mods then step in, admonishing everyone and/or threatening to shut the thread down. Instead of asking the clear antagonists to politely zip it, as would be done in any other thread, such as in the feminism forum.

From January 25th's NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/opinion/sunday/schizophrenic-not-stupi...

As far as I see it this is one person's position, not negating anyone else's . 

I'm sure there is plenty to agree and disagree with nevertheless.

Here is a video on a natural approach to mental health.  It is a rabble podcast video, so be careful, it is very subversive in nature and might be offensive to some viewers.  Viewer discretion is advised.

Also take note that the person being interviewed is 89 years of age...I hope that I can be that alert when I am 89. 

Natural approach to psychiatry.

gp

..in the 70's i knew the system was sick/broken/controlling and i think the same today. txs for this airing.

GP wrote:

Someone mentioned earlier that some viewpoints are more equal than others, implying that their viewpoints are more valid.

If you believe that all knowledge is relative, and reality a matter of opinion, then all viewpoints would be equal. And in such a world, if you took enough vitamins, you could fly. After all, in a world of equivalent opinions, wishful thinking is a fact, and gravity is only a theory.

I was looking for an article I read a while ago about the compelling nature of anecdotes and why we are swayed by them, and found it here. It's kinda long, so I selected the salient points:

Quote:

While attending a lecture by a naturopath at my institution I had the opportunity to ask the following question: given the extreme scientific implausibility of homeopathy, and the overall negative clinical evidence, why do you continue to prescribe homeopathic remedies? The answer, as much as my question, exposed a core difference between scientific and sectarian health care providers. She said, “Because I have seen it work in my practice.”

There it is. She and many other practitioners of dubious modalities are compelled by anecdotal experience while I am not.

An anecdote is a story – in the context of medicine it often relates to an individual’s experience with their disease or symptoms and their efforts to treat it. People generally find anecdotes highly compelling, while scientists are deeply suspicious of anecdotes. We are fond of saying that the plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data. Why is this?

 

Humans are social storytelling animals – we instinctively learn by the experience of others. 

(snip - lengthy explanation for the weaknesses of anecdotal evidence)

It is interesting to note that the scientific community has long ago made up its collective mind about the weaknesses and role of anecdotes. Logic and the lessons of history speak very clearly on this issue. But there are forces at work today that want to turn back the clock on scientific progress – they want to bring back anecdotes as a reliable source of medical evidence, essentially returning to the pre-scientific era of medicine. In some cases this is done out of frustration – that controlled scientific data has not validated a prior strongly held belief. In other cases it seems to be a calculated attempt to lower the bar of evidence to admit treatments that have not been validated by solid scientific evidence. In either case, this is not in the best interest of the health of the public.