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Thomas Szasz: Cho Enabler?
It was probably inevitable that someone would take a whack at Thomas Szasz in the wake of the VT killings. Ladies and gentlemen, Jonathan Kellerman's essay about how 1970s crazies "shut down the asylums" and created a mental health crisis.
The libertarians were fueled by Thomas Szasz, an iconoclastic psychiatrist who was, and remains, an outspoken foe of virtually every aspect of his chosen specialty. Hungarian-born in 1920, and witness to vicious state exploitation of medical practice by the Nazis and the communists, Dr. Szasz pushed an absolutist dogma of individual choice, finding ready converts among members of the Do-Your-Own-Thing generation. Though his early essays offered much-needed critiques of the Orwellian nightmares that can result when autocracy corrupts health care, Dr. Szasz devolved into something of a psychiatric Flat-Earther, insisting in the face of mounting contrary evidence that mental illness simply does not exist. Currently, he serves on a commission, cofounded with the Church of Scientology, that purports to investigate human rights violations perpetrated by mental health professionals.
Sounds like a crazy person, right? Kellerman, in his wisdom, suggests the return of long-term involuntary committment.
If the Virginia Tech shooter had been locked up for careful observation in a humane mental hospital, the worst-case scenario would've been a minor league civil liberties goof: an unpleasant semester break for an odd and hostile young misanthrope who might've even have learned to be more polite. Yes, it's possible confinement would've been futile or even stoked his rage. But a third outcome is also possible: Simply getting a patient through a crisis point can prevent disaster, as happens with suicidal people restrained from self-destruction who lose their enthusiasm for repeat performances.
This is the psychiatrist's version of the Derbyshire gambit - if only the people around Cho had behaved exactly as I would have behaved, this tragedy could have been snuffed out! Except that Derbyshire wasn't arguing for the return of Bedlam. Kellerman does aver a little bit at the end of his piece ("Given the excesses of the past--husbands committing troublesome wives, involuntary sterilization of those judged defective--extreme caution is warranted."), which dilutes the impact (and the point) of his Szasz-bashing.
Worth reading: Jacob Sullum's long Szasz interview from 2000.
|4.24.07 @ 11:59AM|#
"This is the psychiatrist's version of the Derbyshire gambit -
if only the people around Cho had behaved exactly as I would have
behaved, this tragedy could have been snuffed out!"
Uh, no, it's the psychiatrist's version of the Reason gambit - if
only those muddle-headed do-gooders hadn't passed those dumb laws,
someone would have been able to Take This Guy Down.
|4.24.07 @ 12:01PM|#
"...1970s crazies "shut down the asylums" and created a mental
health crisis."
Hmmm. This sounds vaguely familiar.
_________
"If the Virginia Tech shooter had been locked up for careful
observation in a humane mental hospital...."
Yes, of course; be sure and get back to us when you work out an
iron-clad definition of "humane," won't you?
|4.24.07 @ 12:05PM|#
What an idiot is Kellerman.
"...the worst-case scenario would've been a minor league civil
liberties goof." This is only a minor goof if it is not you who it
happens too...
And if we had 32 (or would it take 3200) folks unecessarily locked
up, possibly made worse or better, but either way deprived of
liberty for some time and stigmatized for life (remember all those
watch lists) - would that be enough to clamor for Szasz type
reforms?
If everybody were constantly monitored and involuntarily
hospitalized at the first sign of a "threat" I am sure some
shootings would be prevented. The armed insurrection that
inevitably results would probably take more lives overall
though....not to mention the cost to those hospitalized by "minor
civil liberty goofs" along the way.
|4.24.07 @ 12:13PM|#
Involuntary Commitment still happens all the time, and it's not
really a big deal.
My sister-in-law tried to kill herself about a year ago; they
locked her up for a couple days and sent her home. She tried again,
so they locked her up for a couple weeks this time. When she got
out, she was past the "crisis" and has been fine ever since.
Without the commitment, she'd probably be dead.
Cho was clearly nuts, and should have been locked up.
Grotius|4.24.07 @ 12:27PM|#
In the early 1970s a group of people voluntarily admitted
themselves to mental hospitals in various locales throughout the
U.S. Most of them were mental health professionals of some sort.
Upon entry they began to tell their new wards they were indeed
sane. No one believed them. Indeed, their actions - such as
notetaking - were interpreted as signs of their insanity. To get
out they had to pretend to be insane and also pretend to get
better. The findings from these efforts were publish in a paper
(see the link below for a link to that paper) - it caused some
consternation. Indeed, one of the hospitals where these events
occurred demanded that they be sent new pseudo-patients so they
could show how well they could identify them. Some months later the
hospital claimed that they had identified a certain number of
pseudo-patients. It turns out that none had been sent to the
hospital.
If they same thing were done today, that is eight individual
psuedo-patients voluntarily committing themselves, how many of
these psuedo-patients would be identified?
I blogged about this here.
|4.24.07 @ 12:27PM|#
As big a fan as I am of the alternate view on topics, I find
Reason's faves a bit odd.
This week it is
Szasz = good.
R. Carson = bad.
Szasz sees a problem with mental health practice and says "there is
no mental illness."
Carson sees a problem with pesticides and attempts to change
attitudes from "spray to the limit of your capacity" to "spray as
little as you possibly can."
I would respect Szasz a lot more if his position had ended up
looking more like Carson's. And if he were willing to change his
position based on new evidence, that would be even better.
|4.24.07 @ 12:34PM|#
Grotius,
You may find this interesting.
http://www.dsm5.org/index.cfm
In particular you should read the white papers to see how the
profession is struggling with how to make diagnosis a more
empirically driven endeavor.
A summary of the white papers,
http://dsm5.org/whitepapers.cfm
Grotius|4.24.07 @ 12:36PM|#
Neu Mejican,
I think one of the most significant problems with the mental health
profession is that it has medicalized "normal" human emotions.
Franklin Harris|4.24.07 @ 12:36PM|#
I've read one of Kellerman's lousy novels, and I think maybe he should check himself into a padded room.
|4.24.07 @ 12:37PM|#
The problem with civil commitment is that it lasts as long as
the appropriate experts think there's a problem. Also, if someone
poses a threat, whether he can be committed depends on whether his
behavior can be assigned into some psychiatric category.
Why not do some research on the old common-law device of the peace
bond? If someone's engaging in threatening behavior - regardless of
his degree of mental health or lack thereof - require that he post
bond and find sureties for his law-abiding behavior.
Based on the research on the actual operation of the peace-bond
system, did it trample on civil liberties? I am not familiar with
the evidence, but I'd be interested in knowing.
|4.24.07 @ 12:39PM|#
And if he were willing to change his position based on new
evidence, that would be even better.
What evidence would that be?
Szasz has a strict definition of "illness". I've never seen him be
unwilling to acknowledge that people are wired differently. My
understanding is that he simply refuses to classify those
differences as "illnesses".
Fluffy|4.24.07 @ 12:41PM|#
I don't like the way Kellerman calls out those who make
diagnoses from a distance, but than does the same thing.
Other than the shooting, what evidence has been presented that Cho
was a psychotic who would have been committable anyway?
I haven't seen any claims that he had delusions or heard
voices.
You have to do a bit better than "asocial mutism" and general
hostility.
The tapes [what little has been shown] make him seem pissed off,
but not necessarily crazy. The whole "You made me do this," bit
could be exaggerated into paranoia, but don't most violent people
find a way to claim that their violence is their victims'
fault?
You have to come up with a better plan than locking up all
antisocial and hostile people before I'll sign on. Shrinks examined
this guy and let him go. On what basis would Kellerman do any
different? Other than general weirdness?
And I also don't think we should take peoples' civil rights,
including the right to buy a weapon, away because Kellerman thinks
their anger is irrational. "Irrational anger" always ends up
defined as "anger I don't personally agree with", and that's just
not enough.
|4.24.07 @ 12:41PM|#
How about this idea, this is a really tough problem that is not
all one sided. Yeah, it was wrong what went on back in the day when
people were sterilized and innocent people were locked up. No one
would want to go back to that. But, that doesn't mean Szazs wasn't
a nut himself. There really are mentally ill people out there who
cannot help themselves. They are all over America's cities living
in total filth and misery. Go look at the homeless population in
any major city and you will find loads of serverly mentally ill
people, who would be better off committed. Some of the mentally ill
like Cho are downright dangerous. What do you want? Do you want to
go back to the old days or a more humane version of the old days
and lock people like Cho up before they harm someone but risk
innnocent people getting locke up or do you want to have what we
have now where few innocent people are locked up but 1000s of
mental patients live on the streets unable to help themselves and
the occasional Cho is able to do some real damage.
It is not an easy question to answer. But, people like Weigel
shouldn't sit around and pretend that the current system is not
without costs. Maybe those costs are worth paying. Take that up
with the familieis of the victims in Blacksburg. Maybe they are not
but they sure as hell are there.
|4.24.07 @ 12:45PM|#
"What evidence would that be?"
Well that would be a longer post than I am willing to get
into...but many conditions classed as mental illness (e.g.,
depression, schizophrenia) currently meet his stated criteria for
"illness," and yet he continues to hold that they are not
illness.
Grotius|4.24.07 @ 12:45PM|#
Can the mental health community properly indentify the people we
apparently need to involuntarily commit?
Can it 'cure' them?
|4.24.07 @ 12:53PM|#
Can the mental health community properly indentify the people we
apparently need to involuntarily commit?
Sometimes.
Can it 'cure' them?
Practically never. All it can do is lock them up in a hopefully
humane setting and try to make them comfortable. Basically, if you
are mentally ill, the chances are pretty slimt that you will ever
get better. It happens but not as much as it doesn't. It is really
tragic.
|4.24.07 @ 12:54PM|#
Well that would be a longer post than I am willing to get
into...but many conditions classed as mental illness (e.g.,
depression, schizophrenia) currently meet his stated criteria for
"illness," and yet he continues to hold that they are not
illness.
What exists at present that allows a person to walk into a Dr.'s
office and have that Dr. definitively determine "depression" or
"schizophrenia". I'm aware of research that has tracked conditions
such as this to brain chemical imbalances and whatnot, but that
doesn't help Joe Psychiatrist make a definitive analysis.
When DSM-X defines depression as a "level of Y that exceeds Z in
the brain, detectable via ABC", then maybe we'll be closer to
agreeing on the word "illness".
|4.24.07 @ 12:55PM|#
Grotius,
This is the Cochrane review of the issue
"Compulsory community and involuntary outpatient treatment for
people with severe mental disorders.
* Kisely S,
* Campbell LA,
* Preston N.
Department of Psychiatry, Community Health & Epidemiology,
Dalhousie University, Room 425, Centre for Clinical Research, 5790
University Avenue, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, NS B3H 1V7.
Stephen.Kisely@cdha.nshealth.ca
BACKGROUND: There is controversy as to whether compulsory community
treatment for people with severe mental illnesses reduces health
service use, or improves clinical outcome and social functioning.
Given the widespread use of such powers it is important to assess
the effects of this type of legislation. OBJECTIVES: To examine the
clinical and cost effectiveness of compulsory community treatment
for people with severe mental illness. SEARCH STRATEGY: We
undertook searches of the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group Register to
2003 and Science Citation Index. We obtained all references of
identified studies and contacted authors of each included study.
SELECTION CRITERIA: All relevant randomised controlled clinical
trials of compulsory community treatment compared with standard
care for people with severe mental illness. DATA COLLECTION AND
ANALYSIS: We reliably selected and quality assessed studies and
extracted data. For binary outcomes, we calculated a fixed effects
risk ratio (RR), its 95% confidence interval (CI) and, where
possible, the weighted number needed to treat/harm statistic
(NNT/H). MAIN RESULTS: We identified two randomised clinical trials
(total n=416) of court-ordered 'Outpatient Commitment' (OPC) from
the USA. We found little evidence to indicate that compulsory
community treatment was effective in any of the main outcome
indices: health service use (2 RCTs, n=416, RR readmission to
hospital by 11-12 months 0.98 CI 0.79 to 1.2), social functioning
(2 RCTs, n=416, RR outcome 'arrested at least once by 11-12 months'
0.97 CI 0.62 to 1.52), mental state, quality of life (2 RCTs,
n=416, RR homelessness 0.67 CI 0.39 to 1.15) or satisfaction with
care (2 RCTs, n=416, RR perceived coercion 1.36 CI 0.97 to 1.89).
However, risk of victimisation may decrease with OPC (1 RCT, n=264,
RR 0.5 CI 0.31 to 0.8, NNT 6 CI 6 to 6.5). In terms of numbers
needed to treat, it would take 85 OPC orders to prevent one
readmission, 27 to prevent one episode of homelessness and 238 to
prevent one arrest. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Based on current
evidence, community treatment orders may not be an effective
alternative to standard care. It appears that compulsory community
treatment results in no significant difference in service use,
social functioning or quality of life compared with standard care.
There is currently no evidence of cost effectiveness. People
receiving compulsory community treatment were, however, less likely
to be victim of violent or non-violent crime. It is, nevertheless,
difficult to conceive of another group in society that would be
subject to measures that curtail the freedom of 85 people to avoid
one admission to hospital or of 238 to avoid one arrest. We
urgently require further, good quality randomised controlled
studies to consolidate findings and establish whether it is the
intensity of treatment in compulsory community treatment or its
compulsory nature that affects outcome. Evaluation of a wide range
of outcomes should be included if this type of legislation is
introduced."
stuartl|4.24.07 @ 12:59PM|#
But who is good enough to replace Jack Nicholson as Randle Patrick McMurphy in the remake of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
|4.24.07 @ 1:01PM|#
MP,
The diagnosis of many diseases are fraught with similar
difficulties.
Besides, definitions based on narrow physical markers have
different dangers. Sometimes people have the narrow physical sign,
but no symptoms. Do we define them as having an illness?
stuartl|4.24.07 @ 1:04PM|#
Basically, if you are mentally ill, the chances are pretty
slimt that you will ever get better.
Uh, no. Modern meds are frequently very effective. I certainly
would not argue for enforcing their use however.
|4.24.07 @ 1:05PM|#
Besides, definitions based on narrow physical markers have
different dangers. Sometimes people have the narrow physical sign,
but no symptoms. Do we define them as having an illness?
What is the relevance of symptoms? Symptoms are potential
indicators, nothing more. If I have a discreet medical condition
that's not presently causing me any harm, it doesn't mean the
condition doesn't exist.
|4.24.07 @ 1:07PM|#
"How about this idea, this is a really tough problem that is not
all one sided."
Booooooo!!!!
;-)
Peace, John.
excimer|4.24.07 @ 1:07PM|#
One of the reasons I like Reason so much is because it chooses
to champion people whose philosophies and actions are quite
obviously imperfect, instead of putting a person's entire being on
a pedestal. Szasz is one of those characters. Lest we forget that
Szasz, for the extremist positions he takes on psychiatry (which I
mostly disagree with) was a major advocate for removing
homosexuality as an official mental disorder, which, I dunno about
you, but I'm rather happy about.
Few pundits are willing to actually take the reasonable stance of
picking and choosing what opinions one supports and those that one
does not. To that end, Kellerman is either a fool or a shitty
writer.
Maybe those costs are worth paying. Take that up with the
families of the victims in Blacksburg. Maybe they are not but they
sure as hell are there.
Thank you for playing the emotional bait-and-switch game, John.
I'll bite: is the price of not having thousands of people locked up
because some doctor "don't think they is all right up in the head"
worth the deaths of 32 people? Ideally, neither would have to
happen, but we don't live in an ideal world, do we? The slope
between freedom and security is slippery, indeed...
|4.24.07 @ 1:12PM|#
"What is the relevance of symptoms?"
If you think that symptoms are not part of a disease, then disease
has no meaningful definition.
That discreet medical condition that is not presently causing you
any harm is not a disease until the symptoms manifest. The
prognostic sign that the doctor uses to assess your risk of
developing the disease should not be confused with the disease
itself.
libertreee|4.24.07 @ 1:17PM|#
Thanks to this post, maybe we should look again at the Friday
Funnies and those bloggers who insist Cho was 'just nuts"
Szasz makes us think about whether "just nuts" exists.
The kid had inner demons, the school passed a bad law, the public
school system itself is partly to blame, kids who are "cool" pick
on kids who are "geeks", he was autistic, didn't get laid, a victim
of our post industrial economy, and a self absorbed bad
writer.
But nuts? Nah!
|4.24.07 @ 1:23PM|#
Thank you for playing the emotional bait-and-switch game, John.
I'll bite: is the price of not having thousands of people locked up
because some doctor "don't think they is all right up in the head"
worth the deaths of 32 people? Ideally, neither would have to
happen, but we don't live in an ideal world, do we? The slope
between freedom and security is slippery, indeed..."
The price bigger than just Cho. First, how many people do harm that
you don't hear about? If Cho had only killed one or two people we
wouldn't be having this conversation. Second, what about the people
who are left to walk the streets unable to help themselves? Are
those people better off with their freedom? I don't see our
enlightened society is any better than the Victorians. Yeah, the
Victorians locked the mentally ill up under horrible conditions,
but that doesn't sound much better than dumping them off on the
street to fend for themselves.
|4.24.07 @ 1:26PM|#
"That discreet medical condition that is not presently
causing you any harm is not a disease until the symptoms manifest.
The prognostic sign that the doctor uses to assess your risk of
developing the disease should not be confused with the disease
itself."
How does this work in light of the fact that many diseases are
asymptomatic?
|4.24.07 @ 1:27PM|#
Again I say; This all happened because the VT English department allowed Cho to believe he was a bright, literate, intelligent human being.
|4.24.07 @ 1:28PM|#
ecimer,
Truthfully, I think you might be right; the risk to our freedom is
greater than the risk of the occasional Cho going bizerk. If that
is true though, then people need to accept that fact and stop
scapegoating the docs and the judge in this case. You can't have it
both ways.
Jennifer|4.24.07 @ 1:29PM|#
Yeah, the Victorians locked the mentally ill up under
horrible conditions, but that doesn't sound much better than
dumping them off on the street to fend for themselves.
If the Victorians only locked up those whom we'd call "mentally
ill" I'd maybe agree. But they also locked up a lot of people who
were not sick, not a danger to themselves or others, but merely
different.
As a former Southern girl child once dragged to therapists in hopes
of curing sick tendencies like reading lots of books, I am very
glad that such unfeminine behavior is no longer considered grounds
for commitment.
MattXIV|4.24.07 @ 1:34PM|#
I don't buy into Szasz's or other hyper-skeptical outlooks
towards mental illness (for reasons I can describe if anyone really
wants to get into it), but Kellerman is an asshole who is content
to and in some cases affirmatively wants to bring back the abuses
of yesteryear.
As he more or less concedes, there is no therapeutic aspect of
inpatient psychiatric care that couldn't be delivered in an
outpatient setting. The inpatient aspect exists solely to control
the actions of the patient, which can be justifiable when the
patient poses a treat to him/herself or others. But that isn't the
standard that Kellerman wants to use - Keller is content to lock up
those with whose thoughts are sufficiently "bizarre" or
"disabling."
Long term inpatient treatment is simply a way to lock up the
crazies that psychiatry can't help effectively so "normal" people
don't have to deal with them. And not only does Kellerman admit it,
he embraces it with a smug smile (see his comments on "3-square
meals" and trivialization of "warehousing"), he cherry picks
information from the VT case to - such as making an evaluation of
the patient via news reports and gossip while denying that he is
doing so and ignoring the evaluations of the mental health
practioners that evaluated Cho directly - to suggest that it would
have been averted if we were more enthusiastic about locking up the
mentally ill. Asshole.
|4.24.07 @ 1:36PM|#
"As a former Southern girl child once dragged to therapists in
hopes of curing sick tendencies like reading lots of books, I am
very glad that such unfeminine behavior is no longer considered
grounds for commitment."
Be glad no one thought you were an addict. I knew lots of people in
college whose parents found one joing in their dresser and ended up
in years of "rehab" where whenever they told the counselor, "but I
only had one joint I never had a drug problem" they were told they
were in "denial" and punished. It is interesting that in a day and
age when we are so loath to commit the legitimately mentally ill,
we are very quick to lock up our kids in the name of stopping thier
"addiction".
|4.24.07 @ 1:38PM|#
Kellerman's problem, then, is that he completely glosses over
what criteria a person should be compared against before being
tossed into an asylum.
That, I think, is the problem with much of the psychiatric
community. They haven't evolved out of the mental equivalent of
evaluating diseases based on maladjusted humors.
Seems to me that if there is a need to take away someone's freedom
because they present a danger to themselves or others, there needs
to be a method of doing so that's at least comparable to a court of
law with a judge and jury.
poco|4.24.07 @ 1:40PM|#
once dragged to therapists in hopes of curing sick
tendencies like reading lots of books
What did the shrinks tell you and/or your parents about that,
Jennifer? Just curious.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 1:42PM|#
"As a former Southern girl child once dragged to therapists in
hopes of curing sick tendencies like reading lots of books, I am
very glad that such unfeminine behavior is no longer considered
grounds for commitment."
Shenanigans!
Grotius|4.24.07 @ 1:42PM|#
Psychiatrists will have to get a lot better at determining who is a danger to others. As to the "danger to themselves" bit, well, I don't have any problem with suicide.
|4.24.07 @ 1:43PM|#
"What did the shrinks tell you and/or your parents about that,
Jennifer? Just curious."
Notice she doesn't mention what the books were. Maybe if we knew
that, her parents might not look so bad. The fact that the books in
question consisted of the Satanic Bible and the Anarchist Cookbook
and Jennifer had a large amount of nitrate fertilizer in her closet
might be relevant to the discussion.
|4.24.07 @ 1:48PM|#
David
In fairness to Derbyshire he did not say how he "would have"
behaved, he said it's how he hoped he would behave. From his
original post:
"It's true-none of us knows what he'd do in a dire situation
like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die
anyway, I'd at least take a run at the guy.
|4.24.07 @ 1:50PM|#
Meanwhile, Quentin Tarantino remains at large.
And making increasingly bizarre self absorbed movies.
Jennifer|4.24.07 @ 1:51PM|#
Notice she doesn't mention what the books were. Maybe if we
knew that, her parents might not look so bad. The fact that the
books in question consisted of the Satanic Bible and the Anarchist
Cookbook and Jennifer had a large amount of nitrate fertilizer in
her closet might be relevant to the discussion.
No, actually, my mother's complaint was "she reads the same books
over and over again, and it's sick to read a book when you already
know how it's going to end." She was also upset that sometimes,
when my friends would come over, she'd find us sitting and reading
rather than, you know, doing stuff.
What did the shrinks tell you and/or your parents about that,
Jennifer?
He said, and I quote, "Mmm." Mom was the one paying the bills, and
psychiatric whores know better than to annoy the johns who pay
them. At the time I was too young to know that a non-committal
"mmm" was psychtalk for "what a bunch of bullshit." I thought it
meant "yes, this is indeed a problem."
But he never, ever said "There's nothing wrong with reading. Leave
her the hell alone, stop telling her it's a problem, and she'll be
fine."
|4.24.07 @ 1:56PM|#
Let me guess, Jennifer, when your insurance ran out or your parents got tired of paying, you were magically "cured"? That is ussually how it works with most teen therapist hacks.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 1:59PM|#
Still call shenanigans!
Parents don't pay good money, even to psycho-whores, because the
child is reading unfeminine books. Something else going on.
Nice try with the dig against Southerners.
|4.24.07 @ 1:59PM|#
No doctor ever got a new Jaguar by saying, "Get out of my office; there's nothing wrong with you."
|4.24.07 @ 1:59PM|#
Mediageek,
"How does this work in light of the fact that many diseases are
asymptomatic?"
Lots of technical issues involved here, but for a disease to be
asymptomatic requires that you define "symptom" in a particular way
and "disease" in a particular way. If you define "disease" as
something along the lines of "has condition X, with X being the
presence of some known physical sign associated with outcome Y"
then, when Y is not present but X is we can say that patient Z has
the disease even though they are asymptomatic. For infectious
diseases, progressive diseases, and diseases where condition X and
outcome Y are nearly perfectly correlated, this approach makes good
sense.
For diseases where the etiology and the outcome are more loosely
associated or conditional on other factors, (or less well
understood), then we are better off defining the disease in terms
of Y in the presence of X.
Otherwise you have a problem with over-identification.
|4.24.07 @ 2:02PM|#
If the Virginia Tech shooter had been locked up for careful
observation in a humane mental hospital, the worst-case scenario
would've been a minor league civil liberties goof: an unpleasant
semester break
Involuntary commitment is a variety of imprisonment. Would he be
willing to say that locking a college kid up for assault for a few
months is "an unpleasant semester break?"
And does he really think that being involuntarily committed has no
ramifications for the rest of your life? It shows up on a
background check just like a conviction would.
Yes, it's possible confinement would've been futile or even
stoked his rage.
Ya think? I'd say that's a pretty likely outcome, not just a remote
possibility.
But a third outcome is also possible: Simply getting a patient
through a crisis point can prevent disaster,
Cho wasn't having a bad week; he was having a bad life. Anyone who
thinks locking an asocial autistic up for a few months so people
can play mind games with him is going to change his outlook on life
for the better is an utter fool.
|4.24.07 @ 2:05PM|#
It's true-none of us knows what he'd do in a dire situation
like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die
anyway, I'd at least take a run at the guy.
Derb's other, nuttier pronouncements aside, I cannot comprehend the
mindset of any man who would not agree with this statement.
Jennifer|4.24.07 @ 2:11PM|#
Let me guess, Jennifer, when your insurance ran out or your
parents got tired of paying, you were magically "cured"?
Pretty much. I don't know why everybody keeps whining about how
hard it is to find a cure for cancer, when all you have to do is
say "Hey, sicky! Your insurance has run out!"
Parents don't pay good money, even to psycho-whores, because
the child is reading unfeminine books.
And parents always have their children's best interests at heart,
too. That's why, if you ever have the urge to read about topics
like child abuse, you have to go to the science-fiction section of
your local bookstore.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 2:12PM|#
RC Dean
what you said last. I actually pray that if I am ever in this situ,
I will try to disarm the murderer, and if that fails, I will put my
own body between the SOB and the stupid cowering liberals who will
later talk about how mentally unhealthy the killer was.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 2:15PM|#
wow! OK Jennifer. If you think good parenting is sci-fi, then I really don't know how to respond. It has always been common in my life.
Jennifer|4.24.07 @ 2:17PM|#
If you think good parenting is sci-fi, then I really don't
know how to respond.
I'm guessing your response will be consistent either with that of a
troll, or someone with abysmally poor reading comprehension.
|4.24.07 @ 2:18PM|#
Asymptomatic.
An example: Chlamydia trachomatis.
This bacteria does not cause any symptoms in 3/4ths of those
infected with it. If it never leads to any of the negative outcomes
that can be associated with it (pelvic inflammatory disease,
chronic pelvic pain, ectopic pregnancy, sterility), then is the
infection without the negative outcome a disease?
It is usually consider one because chlamydia trachomatis is very
contagious and when passed on to others, has a good chance (1/4) of
leading to those negative outcomes.
Should those who are infected with Chlamydia trachomatis be forced
to undergo the simple treatment to lower the risk for others? Even
though they may never experience any negative outcomes
themselves?
The issue Kellerman brings up is similar in many ways.
|4.24.07 @ 2:20PM|#
NLLH- Let's take a look at your premises. You assume, fist off,
that Jennifer's parents must have been rational and had a
legitimate basis for concern. Since you don't know her parents, I
can only presume that your supposition is that all parents are
rational and act only when there is a legitimate basis of concern.
That strikes me as untenable at best. Do I need to draw your
attention to the countless examples of parents acting stupidly that
one can find with about 2 seconds of research? If that doesn't
work, allow me to point out that parents are humans. Humans are
fallible. Therefore, parents are fallible.
You also seem to assume that Jennifer's assessment of the shrink as
a whore is wrong. Again, since you don't know this shrink, I can
only presume that you find the idea of a shrink being a whore
preposterous on its face. And that only works if you think that no
shrinks are whores. Again, that premise is just untenable. Do some
research here.
Or just think more carefully. Jennifer hasn't given us enough info
to say yes or no definitively, but given that it's plausible for a
parent to be nuts and a shrink to be a whore, and given that
Jennifer seems like a reasonably normal and highly intelligent
woman, I put it in the "provisionally accepted" category.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 2:24PM|#
I guess I'm a troll then. Although I admit my reading
comprehension is probably horrific.
I've yet to encounter any parent who pays money solely because of
unfeminine reading. There has always, in my limited experience,
been something else involved.
|4.24.07 @ 2:26PM|#
mllh:
I've yet to encounter any parent who pays money solely because of
unfeminine reading. There has always, in my limited experience,
been something else involved.
This is known as the inductive fallacy. An example: every cat I've
ever seen is gray. Therefore, all cats are gray.
|4.24.07 @ 2:27PM|#
"Jennifer seems like a reasonably normal and highly intelligent
woman, I put it in the "provisionally accepted" category."
Shenanigans.
;^)
Just kidding.
Jennifer.
Did the psych ever diagnosis you with a condition?
It sounds like your treatment falls into the "voluntary" category.
The coercive agents being your parents rather than the state or the
psych. Psych provided a service to your parents in line with
Szasz's view of the profession.
Russ 2000|4.24.07 @ 2:30PM|#
Cho wasn't having a bad week; he was having a bad life.
Anyone who thinks locking an asocial autistic up for a few months
so people can play mind games with him is going to change his
outlook on life for the better is an utter fool.
I'll bet Cho heard a lot of "Mmm" and was old enough
to know that a non-committal "Mmm" was psychtalk for "what a
bunch of bullshit."
Rather than scapegoating the psychs for not locking Cho up, maybe
we should be scapegoating them for pushing him over the edge.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 2:33PM|#
#6
I do not know Jennifer. I am just making observations based on my
own life experience, which is, I might add, extensive.
I just do not accept her premise as stated. As a rule, parents do
not call in pychiatrists for "unfeminine" texts. I am not the only
one here who has expressed interest in what those texts were.
And I hold that, unless there were very unusual circumstances in
her "Southern" upbringing, the juvenile Jennifer was probably a
problem regardless of what she read.
tros|4.24.07 @ 2:34PM|#
Anyone who works in a pharmaceutical mental hospital should kill themselves. Or get a new job. The VT guy flipped out because he didn't get the psilocybin he needed.
Russ 2000|4.24.07 @ 2:35PM|#
Psych provided a service to your parents in line with
Szasz's view of the profession.
You don't know how to read. Szasz says the voluntariness lies with
the patient, not the bill payer.
dhex|4.24.07 @ 2:36PM|#
"Parents don't pay good money, even to psycho-whores, because
the child is reading unfeminine books. Something else going
on."
i call scccccchenanigans on your shenanigans. you've never met
parents with strange bees in their bonnets?
The Wine Commonsewer|4.24.07 @ 2:38PM|#
I tend to go with the idea that Mental Illness is highly
over-rated and much more rare than we imagine. On the flip side
there are instances when treatment is warranted and some people do
much better with drugs than without them.
It is further interesting to me that when insurance companies
stopped paying for weekly shrinking treatments lasting for years on
end the shrinks decided they didn't need to explore every facet of
your childhood in excruciating detail in order to cure you. It
quickly became a wham-bam thank-you-Ma'am process as it is
today.
And just for the record, it isn't that fargin' easy to get somebody
locked up for observation in the looney bin. Unless they've
attempted suicide it is a long and involved process.
Once locked up there is an up-to-three days for observation. At the
discretion of the hospital, that can be extended to 14 days. That's
pretty much it for mandatory lock down without a court
intervention.
Russ 2000|4.24.07 @ 2:38PM|#
The VT guy flipped out because he didn't get the psilocybin
he needed.
33 more victims of the War On Drugs.
Justin M. Stoddard|4.24.07 @ 2:39PM|#
I was 6 years old when I was first brought to a child
psychologist. In his after-action write up, he noted that I had a
very short attention span. His anecdotal evidence for this
was...wait for it...I wandered around the office looking at stuff
and could not sit still for more than 5 minutes.
Now, I ask you, what 6 year old sits still for 5 minutes at a time?
What 6 year old does not "wander around" checking out his
environment?
Not matter, it was Ritalin for me. The psychologist also
recommended that a screen be placed around me in my class-room so I
would not be distracted by the other children. Now, I don't know
about you, but something like that is a sure invitation for a
playground ass whoppin', if you know what I mean.
Fast forward 29 years. I have a fantastic job and am finishing up
my own degree in psychology. I am a huge advocate of therapy. Hey,
if you need to talk to someone, freaking talk to them. Having read
Szasz, I admire his take on private therapy...two consenting adults
talking things through. No fuss, no muss.
I think Jennifer and others taking her point of view hit it spot
on. Psychologists, just like every other profession, can be whores.
There are good and bad, no doubt. Thankfully, the free market helps
a bit in sorting them out.
However, when you have psychiatrists locking people up on their
whim...well, mostly only bad can follow. The free market cannot
flush out the difference.
This is a weird time loop enigma. 33 people would not be dead were
Cho locked up. But, then again, how the hell would we know if Cho
being locked up would have prevented 33 deaths if they never
happened? Weird.
The Wine Commonsewer|4.24.07 @ 2:39PM|#
Currently, he serves on a commission, cofounded with the
Church of Scientology, that purports to investigate human rights
violations perpetrated by mental health professionals.
How about those perpetrated by Scientologists?
Associating with known Scientologists is mental illness in my
book.
Jennifer|4.24.07 @ 2:41PM|#
Clarification: I wasn't reading unfeminine books; I was reading books, which are inherently unfeminine. Especially for a pretty child, which I was. Books are for people who can't find boyfriends, you see.
Dave W.|4.24.07 @ 2:43PM|#
He said, and I quote, "Mmm." Mom was the one paying the
bills, and psychiatric whores know better than to annoy the johns
who pay them.
strong agree. go, jennifer!
|4.24.07 @ 2:43PM|#
mllh-Yes, your statement is an example of an inductive fallacy.
In this case, the problem is that your sample isn't broad enough or
large enough to be meaningful. Also, even valid inductive reasoning
must come with a caveat, since some element of doubt is inherent in
that type of logic.
"As a rule based on my experience" does not count as a refutation
of Jennifer's particular case. I've been as clear as I can about
this. If you still don't see why your logic is problematic, I can't
help.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 2:43PM|#
Russ 2000
it's actually a ref which pre-dates "The Cure" by several
centuries. "In der Nacht sind alle Katzen grau." An old German folk
saying.
|4.24.07 @ 2:45PM|#
"Especially for a pretty child, which I was."
Why the hell didn't you just go with it and become a dumb blond?
Everyone loves a dumb blond. Who wouldn't want to be one if they
could?
mllh|4.24.07 @ 2:46PM|#
#6, because I offered no conclusions, just suspicions,
suggestions, and concerns.
And don't even try. Please don't.
Russ 2000|4.24.07 @ 2:48PM|#
mllh,
Yes, I know. But since we're talking psychiatry, "The Cure" is a
better reference point.
|4.24.07 @ 2:49PM|#
Parents don't pay good money, even to psycho-whores, because
the child is reading unfeminine books. Something else going
on.
Is also a conclusion.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 2:49PM|#
Although if we were to use purely inductive logic, I'd be willing to pit my years of experience, and the years of experience of many, many generations, against Jennifer's and #6's very limited experience.
|4.24.07 @ 2:51PM|#
Although if we were to use purely inductive logic, I'd be
willing to pit my years of experience, and the years of experience
of many, many generations, against Jennifer's and #6's very limited
experience.
Ah, arrogance...sweet arrogance.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 2:51PM|#
Russ,
and perhaps a more musical one.
Also, I can't seem to find any legit origin for the German proverb.
It just seems to have popped up sometime in the middle ages. Damn
Folk Wisdom!
Jennifer|4.24.07 @ 2:54PM|#
I still want to know what those unfeminine books
were.
Read my post at 2:41.
Justin M. Stoddard|4.24.07 @ 2:55PM|#
After reviewing only a tiny portion of abuses that have and
still do occur under banner of "helping other people", I have
absolutely no doubt as to the validity of Jennifer's story.
When nine year old girls get
murdered by state health workers for gargling milk, I have no
problems believing what Jennifer is saying.
|4.24.07 @ 2:55PM|#
On what do you base the assertion that Jennifer and I have limited experience? Or the implication that yours somehow qualifies you to make judgments about what went on in one person's life?
uncle sam|4.24.07 @ 3:09PM|#
My reading of Szasz and of criticisms of same it that critics usually don't quite get his pont.
ed|4.24.07 @ 3:13PM|#
I have nothing to add, except that 98% of the people I have met have been at least 4% insane.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 3:15PM|#
# 6
I did not, nor do not, make judgements about you or Jennifer's
lives.
Deductive logic will not tell me that the sun will rise tomorrow.
Decades of experience in seeing the sun rise every morning will,
however inductively!, tell me that the sun will rise tomorrow.
Deductive logic is extremely limited in its scope. Almost
everything we "know" (and you may consult Hume about "knowing") is
induced.
Your obvious defensiveness raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
This is the result of human experience. Jennifer's obvious dislike
of psychiatrically-informed (-manipulated?) parenting equally
raises the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.
Experienced, i.e., old, people learn to sense, inductively, things
which are unspoken. Anything which is extraordinary to our
experience immediately draws our criticism. And since most of human
knowledge is derived through induction, it would be wise to
consider what those with greater experience suspect.
Again, I say, "suspect." I have not drawn any conclusions. I state
nothing as fact. But the increasing defensiveness of you and your
co-commentator merely reinforce my initial thoughts.
There is always room for exception, but there is usually something
more important than reading going on when a parent springs for a
shrink.
And the names of those books have still not been offered.
Jennifer|4.24.07 @ 3:21PM|#
And the names of those books have still not been
offered.
Oh, for fuck's sake. If it makes you feel any better: when
my mother went bugshit upon discovering me and my friend Donna
reading together rather than playing, I was reading the Trixie
Belden book Donna gave me for my birthday.
No, I don't remember which specific one.
Jennifer's obvious dislike of psychiatrically-informed
(-manipulated?) parenting equally raises the tiny hairs on the back
of my neck.
You think I'm wrong to dislike a psychiatrist who would apparently
agree with my mother's assertion that it is sick to read any given
book more than once? Do you agree that it is, indeed, sick to read
a book when you already know how it's going to end?
dhex|4.24.07 @ 3:24PM|#
mllh, i admire your dedication to digging deeper regardless of
the size of the hole.
"The VT guy flipped out because he didn't get the psilocybin he
needed."
sure, cause there's nobody who ever did mushrooms and then acted
like a selfish fuck or murderous asshole.
|4.24.07 @ 3:28PM|#
It's not defensiveness, mllh.* It's irritation at shoddy logic.
Your defense of inductive reasoning (and your Hume reference, which
does demonstrate that you know what I'm getting at) is nice. But I
never said we should toss out inductive reasoning. I did say that
inductive conclusions should come with a caveat. (The sun may not
rise tomorrow. You don't know that it will, but you have good
reason to think so. OTOH, astronomy and physics provide more than
enough evidence to deductively conclude that barring meteor strikes
or the spontaneous end of existence, the sun will rise in the
morning.) I also said that your reasoning was faulty, and explained
myself. You have yet to address my criticisms of your
premises.
Your latest statements about your experience are (here comes
another fallacy) an appeal to authority. Such appeals can work, if
you can actually speak authoritatively. (If Steven Hawking were to
tell me something about Physics,, I'd take him at his word.) But
your experience simply does not qualify you to make statements
about Jennifer's life. And your experience certainly does not
obviate the tendency of some parents to be nuts or some shrinks to
be whores-regardless of how old you are.
Incidentally, mllh, my experience in life isn't relevant, since I'm
not offering it as a basis for my statements. I would, however,
caution you against making unfounded suppositions about what
experience I have or don't have. You simply have no basis for
speculation.
|4.24.07 @ 3:32PM|#
... the Derbyshire gambit - if only the people around Cho
had behaved exactly as I would have behaved, this tragedy could
have been snuffed out!
Nice misrepresentation. But typical.
Thanks to this post, maybe we should look again at the Friday
Funnies and those bloggers who insist Cho was 'just
nuts".
'Nuts' isn't the same as having a disease. I happened to call him
crazy - because he did crazy things, but which, if any, disease
contributed to that I have no idea.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 3:32PM|#
Oh for fuck's sake! You should have been committed for reading
such things!
Jennifer,
for what it's worth, I take issue not with the excuse given (and
probably very honestly believed) by those who used psych against
you.
I take issue with people who have a hard time dealing with their
kids, doctors who are all-too-willing to cooperate, and children
who are all-too-willing to blame the medical profession as a whole
(or even parents as a whole) because they got screwed.
I'm sorry if I seemed too hard on you and your cohort.
PS: I read Marx (I mean, everything!, even Das Kapital--the whole
thing, when I was a teenager). My mother still looks at me
funny.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 3:37PM|#
# 6
You're giving me a headache. If I'm older than you, and I'll bet I
am, then my knowledge of sunrises is more valuable than
yours.
So there! 57 years of authority! :)
|4.24.07 @ 3:39PM|#
You are indeed older, mllh. And that's still not relevant, for
the reasons stated above.
Congratulations on making it for 57 years, though.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 3:50PM|#
Thanks
Plenty of you young idiots have tried to stop me.
Anyway, I think I may have lost my train of thought in the course
of this thread--I'm still rather upset at the death of Yeltsin--but
I hope I have made some sense, at least at some point.
If I have gone completely mad, then
screw you babies! In 8 years, you'll be paying me just for
living!
Russ 2000|4.24.07 @ 3:55PM|#
Anyway, I think I may have lost my train of thought in the
course of this thread
Old age, er, experience, will do that to a person.
The Wine Commonsewer|4.24.07 @ 3:55PM|#
scratch the above, you read Trixie Belden? More than once?
I also read Trixie Belden back when I was a little girl. And the
Happy Hollisters, and the Hardy Boys.
And for closers, I still have a mint condition Trixie Belden
book....Do I hear twenty bucks? twenty two?
The Wine Commonsewer|4.24.07 @ 3:58PM|#
Small nit, Kellerman is a psychologist not a
psychiatrist.
I might add that Kellerman isn't big on drugging the brain addled
either.
|4.24.07 @ 3:59PM|#
FYI, a Google search on "I'm still rather upset at the death of Yeltsin" doesn't yield a single hit.
Russ 2000|4.24.07 @ 4:00PM|#
my mother's assertion that it is sick to read any given book
more than once?
Depends on the book. Take the Bible, fer instance.
dhex|4.24.07 @ 4:00PM|#
"screw you babies! In 8 years, you'll be paying me just for
living!"
subsidizing trolling...shit, i bet those "digital divide" types
never considered this as a downside of encouraging internet
use!
SugarFree|4.24.07 @ 4:00PM|#
Professor,
I believe I read enough posts to make my choice. "mllh" clearly
does not pass the Turing Test and is
therefore the robot. I'll have my full report on your desk by
Thursday.
The Wine Commonsewer|4.24.07 @ 4:07PM|#
Rather than scapegoating the psychs for not locking Cho up,
maybe we should be scapegoating them for pushing him over the
edge.
That is a serious problem. Resulted in an attempted murder and some
jail time for a chick I knew.
For years she was as crazy as a pet loon. Her family tried to get
her to voluntarily commit. No dice.
Once she got out of jail she didn't need any shrinking any more. No
more arson, no more stabbings, no more attempted suicides, no more
Valium, no more booze. Scared straight I guess you'd call it.
It was an amazing and near instant transformation.
|4.24.07 @ 4:13PM|#
If the Virginia Tech shooter had been locked up for careful
observation in a humane mental hospital, the worst-case scenario
would've been a minor league civil liberties goof: an unpleasant
semester break for an odd and hostile young misanthrope who
might've even have learned to be more polite.
Yes, if you locked up this one misanthrope the result
would have perhaps been a "minor league civil liberties goof." But
the policy prescription here is to lock them all up. If
one person is "minor league," what does that make 100,000?
Also, how can you at once say that involuntarily committing Cho
would at worst have been a minor civil liberties goof and also say
that it might have "stoked his rage"? So, it might have led to,
say, 50 dead? That seems like a "worst-case scenario" that is much
worse than a mere "civil liberties goof."
Jennifer|4.24.07 @ 4:22PM|#
scratch the above, you read Trixie Belden? More than
once?
Actually, that book I only read once. I didn't much care for it (or
Nancy Drew, either).
Grotius|4.24.07 @ 5:05PM|#
So would only a Southern parent send their child to a shrink due to their reading choices?
|4.24.07 @ 6:03PM|#
Note: I'm a regular poster who is going anonymous
temporarily.
I was top 10 student in high school. I excelled at several
non-sports-related extracurriculars, and while I was nothing like a
BMOC, I had a regular circle of friends. Due to a late in the year
birthday I was one of the youngest kids in my class, and was a bit
of a slow mover in school social circles. Still, by the time I was
17-year-old senior I was attending the occasional party, had downed
a beer or two, gotten my learner's permit and even managed to
wangle a prom date with a cute 17-year-old blonde from the junior
class. I had gotten to know her from one of my afterschool
activities. By the time I had graduated, I was still a virgin, but
at least I had kissed a girl.
I received scholarship offers from nearly every college I applied
to. Those schools ranged from some nice, small liberal arts schools
to some nationally prestigious universities. I enrolled at what was
probably my third choice, a decent enough school that gave me a
much nicer financial aid package than the two above it on my list.
I would be living more than a day's drive from home, in a dormitory
on campus. I was invited to join the honors program, so, ambitious
nerd-boy that I was, I signed up for that. After my first two
semesters I had a grade point safely over 3.0, and thought I had
the college thing down. I wasn't getting anywhere with girls, but I
hadn't been trying too hard on that front. Hitting the bars with
the guys was plenty fun, and the only extracurriculars I had put
myself down for was "binging and booting."
In my sophomore and junior years I ran into some trouble.
Coursework was getting harder. My honors sections were no longer
only in areas where I had a strong background, but in some
disciplines I hadn't had any formal exposure to before. As a high
schooler I could attend class, take good notes, do assigned
textbook readings, regurgitate facts to please my teachers and lock
down an "A." In my college courses the supplemental reading was as
important, if not moreso, than the lectures, and I was not used to
putting in the time to keep up with all of it. It wasn't that I
didn't like to read. I gobbled down non-assigned books on a
recreational basis just as I did before I matriculated. My poor
time management was seldom a problem in high school, as a last
minute burst of effort, combined with my natural ability, had
always saved my butt from academic disaster. In college, I was soon
to find that was going to be a neater trick to pull off. The
demands of written assignments started to trip me up, and I had to
plead for extensions, and wound up taking incompletes in some
courses until I could get my work in. I dropped one honors class
because I felt the workload required for a course outside my major
was unrealistic . Eventually the honors program dropped me.
I made a huge mistake by taking up a couple of extracurricular
activities I had participated in in high school. In both cases a
pal of mine who found out I had once been so involved talked me
into signing up. One group made enormous demands on my time, while
the other even required that we travel around our state and spend
some weekends away from campus. I went into these with the idea
that I'd be studying during the "down periods," but I wound up
pissing that time away. I got quite a bit out of those experiences,
but I was really messing up my transcript. Eventually my
scholarship was pulled, and I wasn't making timely progress towards
my degree. I wound up having to take some summer courses at another
school in order to have some hope of graduating on time, and I
didn't manage to complete all of those.
When I went back to school for my senior year, it was pretty clear
to me that I would have to work like a dog to complete a full load
and bring my cumulative average up to something respectable. The
pressure weighed on me. I wasn't able to completely banish my
virulent procrastination, and I pulled more than my share of
all-nighters before big tests or paper deadlines. We were having a
hard winter, and a flu that was spread around college campuses by
one of our basketball opponents got me. I had three bouts with it,
or something like it, before midterms, and missed a lot of class. A
recurring problem I had with sleeping through my alarm clock wasn't
helping me any. I even failed a course in my major when I overslept
and missed a final.
When I visited my family over spring break, I was a wreck. My
midterm grades were going to be poor, and the folks, shelling out
more for my education than we had planned at its outset, were not
going to be happy. I'd already had lectures on buckling down and
not wasting my potential, not to mention money. I woke up one
morning in tremendous pain, as I had broken out in an awful
head-to-toe rash. I had to be rushed to the local emergency room
and shot up with some steroid or other. I didn't have a history of
allergic reactions. I never did get a clear diagnosis of what was
wrong with me. Maybe I was bitten by a tick or something when I had
taken a walk in the woods the previous day. Maybe the Indian
blanket that covered my bed that night, a souvenir my brother had
brought back from New Mexico, contained some irritant. Maybe that
rash was a result of stress. Who knows? In any case, I managed to
get back to school.
Once there, I proceeded to fall to pieces. My attempts to get
current with all my work exhausted me. I eventually gave up, and
turned my attentions to other pursuits. I got back in touch with a
girl at another local school who I had dated a bit, and made a big
deal about her birthday. I rearranged the furniture in my dorm room
several different ways. I decided that now was a good time to lose
weight, and all but stopped eating. I dropped some courses I was
flailing in, and even looked into withdrawing from school
altogether. I had some off-campus friends I was spending a lot of
time with, and was feeling one of them out as a possible source of
a full-time job. Things came to a head when I volunteered to help
organize a party co-hosted by our floor, and proposed turning it
into a much larger event and charity fundraiser, complete with
17-page color-coded diagram and procedural manual, complete with
codenames.
I had totally flipped out.
I had chats with our R.A., and with the dorm chaplain, who happened
to live on our floor. (Yeah, it was a private school.) Somebody
looked into my academic status, and found that I wasn't carrying
enough credits to be considered a full-time student, which meant
that I was technically not supposed to be eligible for a dorm room.
My parents were called. After a plane flight I'm sure they were
happy to shell out for on short notice, not to mention burning
personal days from work, I was confronted by them, my sister who
also attended my school, and those I had confided in. I was
convinced to voluntarily enter a psychiatric ward for a week's
observation. I put my foot down when the plan was to send me to the
county hospital in a campus patrol car driven by a uniformed
rent-a-cop. Instead I went to a private hospital near campus. My
mumblings about not wanting to have a public record of a
psychological commitment, since I might want to run for office
someday was taken as evidence of "delusions of grandeur."
The school allowed me to withdraw for medical reasons, without any
restriction on returning. No mention of psychological problems were
on the paperwork, thank entropy.
The upshot was that I was in a voluntary lockup for a week, was
calmed down by psychoactive drugs and some talk-therapy, and
released into my parents' care. No judicial process ever took
place. Everyone was very concerned about whether or not I had ever
considered suicide. {I was a college student who had been assigned
to read Camus and Plato's Apologia. Of course I had
considered the intellectual arguments for suicide. That doesn't
mean I ever wanted to follow through with that. Perhaps if I'm ever
an 85-year-old with terminal liver-cancer....)
Back home I went to an outpatient facility, once. After the initial
interview, where the Doc in charge of admitting seemed to think
that my admission of college-boy levels of alcohol use [nowadays
called "binge drinking"] might be indicative of a substance abuse
problem, we decided to do without further treatment. I hung around
the house until I could get a job. After about a year I moved back
to the city where I had been going to school and found other
employment. When I had managed to arrange my life and finances
sufficiently, I reenrolled as a part-time student. After three
semesters I finally picked up my degree. As a "grown-up" paying my
own way I got my best grades ever. Had I done so well over my
entire collegiate career I would have graduated with honors.
Why am I telling you this? First, because I can do so anonymously.
I don't tell anyone about my stint in the "booby hatch," unless I
am compelled to. I would tell the woman I loved, before I asked her
to marry me. I don't know what the best term is for what happened
to me. In the bad old days we would have called it a "nervous
breakdown." It wasn't a "psychotic break" of the violent kind. If
anything, I was more social, garrulous and outgoing than I normally
was. I wanted everyone to be my friend, and at least one girl for a
sweetheart. I was only interested in enjoying myself, and had no
desire to hurt anybody, least of all myself. But I was definitely
not in control of my emotions, and acting without any good sense.
Maybe all I needed was to leave school, lie on the beach for a
couple of weeks, eat some good food, get a little exercise and lay
off the booze. Follow that with a kick in the ass and a copy of the
want ads. Repeat as necessary. Once I had been calmed down, that's
essentially what I got.
My conclusions from all of this? Sometimes psychiatry/psychology
can do some good. Not every student who cracks up is dangerous.
Discreetly pushing a troubled young person into observation and/or
treatment may be the best thing for him, but the fear of being
stigmatized might scare them off that path. I could have avoided an
involuntary commitment. The state my college was in had very strict
standards for that, and unless it could be shown that I was
dangerous I would not be locked up against my will. My school could
certainly have kicked me out of the dorm, out of class, and even
suspended or expelled me if I didn't agree to take care of my
problems. I don't know how much of that our local state university
could have done.
Just so you know, I've never had a recurrence of any kind of
psychological problems stronger than "the blues." [Note: No, I have
never experienced clinical depression, AFAIK.] I've done stupid
things when I've had to much to drink, or when some woman dumped
me, and the combination of the two was no picnic. I did get some
counseling once to explore whether I might have a problem with
alcohol. We concluded that, while I might have some tendencies in
that direction, I should get educated about the difference between
moderate use and abuse. Since then I've avoided drinking like a
college-boy, and been the soul of moderation.
|4.24.07 @ 6:11PM|#
Russ 2000,
"Psych provided a service to your parents in line with Szasz's view
of the profession.
You don't know how to read. Szasz says the voluntariness lies with
the patient, not the bill payer."
True. My mistake. Not a problem with reading so much as
writing.
|4.24.07 @ 8:15PM|#
"screw you babies! In 8 years, you'll be paying me just for
living!"
Old assholes spouting on about how the world owes them a living
makes me hope that Soylent Green comes true.
|4.24.07 @ 8:18PM|#
Forcible incarceration for people who have not violated anyone's
rights should give anyone who believes in freedom pause.
Did Cho make threats against anyone's life when he was with the
psychologist(s)? That would be the only reason I can see for
involuntary commitment.
As Phony Handle posted above, people sometimes let stress get to
them and it comes out in bad ways. Involuntary mental
hospitalization would mean that a lot of those people would never
get a chance to get better - especially if they're given
Neuroleptics (Haldol, Thorazine, etc. "Major Tranquilizers). This
class of drugs is among the most brain destroying as any ever
invented - the "schizophrenic brain deterioration" a lot of
psychiatrists like to talk about is actually the result of this.
Combined with the facts that: these hospitals are very bad at
figuring out who is really "sick" (see post above); have a great
incentive (until the insurance runs out) to keep people locked up;
and will often prescribe these drugs after a person leaves, means
that there is a huge potential for involutary hospitalization to do
significant, permanent damage. What might have been a minor bump in
the road for someone becomes a lifelong problem.
This is, to my view, one more reason to hate Scientologists. Thanks
to those fucking avaricious nutjobs, everyone who questions the
overuse of psych meds gets labelled with that brush. OTOH, for a
good (non-Scientologist) criticism of psychiatry, see Toxic
Psychiatry by Peter Breggin.(sp?)
|4.24.07 @ 8:22PM|#
TWC wrote, That is a serious problem. Resulted in an
attempted murder and some jail time for a chick I knew.
For years she was as crazy as a pet loon. Her family tried to
get her to voluntarily commit. No dice.
Once she got out of jail she didn't need any shrinking any
more. No more arson, no more stabbings, no more attempted suicides,
no more Valium, no more booze. Scared straight I guess you'd call
it.
It was an amazing and near instant transformation.
That is a very Szaszian story, implying as it does that the
mentally "ill" behavior was a choice.
For anybody interested in Szasz's ideas, I highly
recommend Bryan Caplan's paper "The Economics of Szasz." A link to
a free copy is provided here:
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2006/09/they_called_me.html
Guy Montag|4.24.07 @ 8:52PM|#
The only "evidence" of his being loony was his splended
post-modernist prose, that rivals anything by a PhD in that field,
and a little following women around.
As I and others have mentioned, had he only written about Black
women he might have gotten the help that he needed. Maybe not,
since he was Asian.
He did wacky in the perfectly accepted and coddled version of the
Left, to include being an English major. His taking up of arms is
nothing different than the living patron Saints of the Left, the
Weatherman Underground.
I predict again that he will be celebrated in a few short months
and his play will be a movie.
eb|4.24.07 @ 9:31PM|#
Forgetting Cho for a second, every day I pass a couple dozen folks voluntarily living on the streets of Hollywood, lying in their own filth and regularly being assaulted by various predators. My compassion for them as human beings outweighs my desire that they have the right to refuse hospitalization. We as a country have forsaken a segment of society that needs us most.
eb|4.24.07 @ 9:35PM|#
Troll. Is that the "N" word for the internet? Since when did
"troll" start being used so flippantly and for anybody that
disagrees with the majority? I've just noticed it being used a lot
lately at this site and was recently accused of being one even
though I've been posting here at least 5 years.
I'm just curious because it seems to have lost its original meaning
and now basically translates to "asshole".
Bozo|4.25.07 @ 12:09AM|#
Troll. Is that the "N" word for the internet? Since when did
"troll" start being used so flippantly and for anybody that
disagrees with the majority?
Huh? You call someone a "nigger" if he disagrees with the
majority?
|4.25.07 @ 1:59AM|#
Neu Mejican said,
"Szasz sees a problem with mental health practice and says 'there
is no mental illness.'
"I would respect Szasz a lot more if his position had ended up
looking more like Carson's. And if he were willing to change his
position based on new evidence, that would be even better."
As far as I have seen from his writings, Szasz has ever only
required a physical cause for "mental ailments," in order to accept
them as medical conditions. Divergence from the norm is not
evidence of mental illness. Szasz had a lot of good to say about
the voluntary relationship between an analyst and a patient, but no
good to say about coerced confinement justified by the diagnosis of
pychiatrists.
Is it your contention that a collection of unorthodox thoughts and
thinking patterns -- absent any physical cause for the unorthodoxy
-- is a legitimate "illness"?
|4.25.07 @ 5:39AM|#
Crimes of the "Military Industrial Complex" are millions of
times greater than the crime of Cho.
The abnormality of "Industrial Society" is millions of times
greater than the abnormality of Cho.
Criminality and Abnormality.
Industrial Society has collectively killed billions of Animals and
Trees [ Remember - plant and animal species developed over a period
of millions ofyears]
It has also killed most of Water and Air [ Please note - polluting
Water and Air is equivalent to killing Water and Air ]
The soil was not fertile when the earth was created. It became
fertile - very slowly - over a period of millions of years. And
look what man has done - He has covered millions and millions of
hectares of land with cement and concrete. All the land that has
been covered with cement and concrete has been killed.
Man has stockpiled thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive
nuclear material and nuclear waste which is going to remain highly
radioactive and carcinogenic for the next thousands of years - and
which has already leaked into the environment hundreds of
times.
There is an arsenal of 50,000 nuclear missiles that can destroy the
planet several times over.
What could be more criminal than this.
What could be more abnormal than this.
Lawyers and Judges are trying to catch a few criminals.
They don't realize the entire Industrial Society is criminal.
Psychologists and Psychiatrists are trying to classify a few people
as abnormal.
They don't realize the entire Industrial Society is abnormal.
Industrial Society is collectively making billions of tonnes of
weapons and explosives [of all kinds] every year - and then it
wonders why there is so much violence in this world.
Big Mystery.
If you make billions of tonnes of weapons and explosives on earth
they are going to be used on earth - they are not going to be used
on Mars.
The link between Mind and Social /
Environmental-Issues.
The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is
causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides
destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds
cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds,
microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we
destroy Nature.
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and
Environment.
Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the
planet.
Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.
If there are no gaps there is no emotion.
Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought
(words/ language) for emotion.
When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to
mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast
words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps
between thinking go on decreasing.
There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.
People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.
Emotion ends.
Man becomes machine.
A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental
slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every
physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A society that entertains itself daily experiences every
non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.
Fast visuals/ words make slow emotions extinct.
Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys emotional
circuits.
A fast (large) society cannot feel pain / remorse / empathy.
A fast (large) society will always be cruel to Animals/ Trees/ Air/
Water/ Land and to Itself.
To read the complete article please follow any of these links
:
PlanetSave
FreeInfoSociety
ePhilosopher
sushil_yadav
Guy Montag|4.25.07 @ 7:11AM|#
Speaking of loons with guns, the Phil Spector murder trial
begins today.
Review the experience that The Ramones had with him when he was
producing Rock & Roll High School.
|4.25.07 @ 11:18AM|#
Hey, sushil, if our consumer society is so friggin' bad, what
are you doing with a computer and internet access?
Hypocrite.
|4.25.07 @ 11:52AM|#
"Is it your contention that a collection of unorthodox thoughts
and thinking patterns -- absent any physical cause for the
unorthodoxy -- is a legitimate "illness"?"
No.
When I say that Szasz doesn't change his view in the face of
evidence, I refer to the abundent evidence that many mental
illnesses meet his criteria of having a physical cause.
As for your collection of thought and thinking patterns...
Be careful not to fall into Descartes' error.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes'_Error
Dualism leads to poor thinking on this issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_%28philosophy_of_mind%29
|4.25.07 @ 1:51PM|#
mediageek,
What do you think I am using the computer for?
I am not using it for fun.
I am not using it for Business.
I am not using it to promote Technology.
I am using it for a cause. If the environment were not getting
destroyed I would not need to spread the message.
Want to know what a hypocrite is?
Cho is a criminal? - Cho is abnormal? What about the rest of the
people? Are they all normal? Do the custodians of Normality have
any idea of what Normality is?
Industrial Society has destroyed all Ecosystems - Plant and Animal
species have been decimated - Is this normal?
Living a consumerist lifestyle that would require 8 - 10 planets to
sustain - Is this normal?
Industrial Society has collectively killed millions of people in
Wars in the last century - Is this normal?
Raping and Plundering the planet in the name of progress and
development - Is this normal?
If you compare the crime of Cho with the crimes of "Military
Industrial Complex" you will find it is like comparing the Lamp
with the Sun
The entire Industrial Society is abnormal, insane and
criminal.
sushil_yadav
|4.25.07 @ 6:28PM|#
I think Sushil Yadav needs to read this.
http://fringe.davesource.com/Fringe/Politics/Unabombers_Manifesto
"No social arrangements, whether laws, institutions, customs or
ethical codes, can provide permanent protection against technology.
History shows that all social arrangements are transitory; they all
change or break down eventually. But technological advances are
permanent within the context of a given civilization."
|4.25.07 @ 11:55PM|#
Cho became a killer - because he was a loner?
Cho became abnormal - because he was a loner?
Cho became a criminal - because he was a loner?
What about the criminals of "Military Industrial Complex?
What about the abnormals of "Military Industrial Complex"?
They are not loners. They kill in groups - they kill in Platoons,
Batallions and Brigades.
And they kill Millions.
If you kill one person they call it Murder.
If you kill a few hundred they call it Terrorism.
If you kill a few million they call it War.
sushil_yadav
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and
Environment.
PlanetSave
FreeInfoSociety
ePhilosopher
|4.26.07 @ 10:42AM|#
Man, this is all so cheap. It's easy to say "Hey, things might have been better if..." because there's no way we want to think of things being worse than this. But short of a time machine, what's the application?
Matt Dioguardi|4.28.07 @ 4:04PM|#
You might be interested in Szasz's opinion about the Virginia
Tech Massacre which can be found here, and is sort of a
rebuttal:
http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=1257
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