Phiolosophy of psychiatry....

[austintorn@aol.com]

And, yet, a person, one who has I-thoughts, is always personalized, never de-personalized by his constitution. The message is 'I', the messenger merely the implementation.

You just wish all not to be chemical, but wishes cannot make things so. The deeper claim of the extraordinary is vacant, whilst the neurological method has been confirmed. Thus, there could not be any more difference in evidence.

“What It Is Like To Be”

What would it be like to be another kind of creature?
Do I-thoughts of self-consciousness emerge
From their integration of experiences?

Who knows about the ‘I’, but, in a sense,
We already know about being other creatures,
For we already have been during our development:

The growth of a human parallels and recapitulates,
At a vastly accelerated rate, the evolution of life.
We start out as a single-celled organism,
Much like an amoeba or a bacterium.

Then we progress through the phase of a blastula,
A simple, undifferentiated multicellular stage,
To become an embryo barely distinguishable
From those of many other animals, even
Including those of reptiles and amphibians.

For these first few weeks after conception,
We are truly a lower form of life ourselves,
Bathing, as long ago, in the warm amniotic sea.

So, how did it feel to you? Can you recall?
No, for you were not around at the time;
There was no developed conscious sense of self.

But, now we do feel like someone, having inner depth,
Our activity and actuality being one and the same.


(As once there was no 'I',
'you' then arrived and then there was,
via the chemical process
of growth after conception)

[Mikal]

Denigrating us to just a brain and chemicals simply allowed all human problems to be neurolized into syndrone's which simply took us to the mass chemicalized drugging which goes on today. Its kind of a double statement in our drugged society....don't take street drugs but do take our pharmecuetical drugs. Its like young kids....the school tells them don't do drugs but then turns around and drugs them with Ritalin which has the same properties chemically as hard drugs on the streets....

Well its the times were in eh....somebody has always got to find a way to make a buck....


Mikal

[austintorn@aol.com]

Seeing how brains work is not 'denigration'.

Some drugs work; some not so well—with side-effects to be traded off, and some don't work at all.

Your own body is a drug factory dispensing drugs all over the place.

Atoms 'not equal' de-personalize

.

[Mikal]

DR. Med. Heinrich Kremer- Niedersachsen & Schleswig-Holstein Clinic
Barcelonia, Spain.

In 8 years Ritalin prescriptions have risen 20 times.
Ritilin is a drug under Narcotics legislation.
Daily Ritilin prescriptions from 1998-1999 rose from 4.7 million to 8.4 million daily.

The interplay of neurotransmitters, receptors, ionic channels, signal pathways, openings of cell energy and biosynthesis of neurons and cell partners in the environment of the brain is immensely complex. The complexity of this interchange in this system brings the realization of risk when foreign substances are introduced into the brain environment.


Pretty powerful medical statement as to the risk of introducing foreign substances into the brain's environment.....

Keep your brain healthy....stay out of societies' pharmacuetical trough....



Mikal

[Bank Nurse]

There is no evidence that the mind and all that comes to mind, such as thoughts, senses and emotions are not of the brain.

No evidence; no TOE.

It is known that brain chemistry imbalances can lead to abnormal mental states.

Can you elaborate on this a little? I'm not sure that I agree with this...you see I think that it is hard to 'measure' any of these things. No brain scan will tell you that you have a mental illness, no blood test will either. Even the GENETIC tests that are being developed aren't really all that good. Psynomics is a online company offering a home diagnostic kit for Bioplar 'disorder' and having the 'gene' (GRK3) will only raise your 'chances' from 1% to 3% of having the disorder. What does this say to you?

Brain chemistry? What sort of brain chemistry are you talking about?

Chris

[Bank Nurse]

Well hello there bank nurse,Chris for short,your last post was about 3 years ago,hope it will not be that long again!

What is mental illness?Well that depends where "it" comes
to the surface,if in England where you are you will be labeled and tagged so to speak,then given medication to
take which is supposed to lessen the "madness"! However,
if you lived in Africa or in the south American rainforests
or even a native American indian you would be respected
and seen as a holyman,a shaman,so mental illness is really
a differing from the accepted norm,and either given medication or reverence depending on where you live.


warmest regards michael.

Michael, I have always valued your input on my questions! We have had many a discussion about this sort of thing and I'm sure we will have many more indeed. But I would like to suggest the following...

What about medication making people even worse? What about the horrific side effects from some medications like clozail? Massive weight gain and having to get your blood checked every week? How about the horrific withdrawl that people have from antidepressants?

I'd prefere the reverance to the medication!

See you soon,

Chris

[mkirkpatrick]

Yes indeed Chris you and I both know from first hand experience about the negative side affects of drugs.

It was not that long ago in England where the rich folk would pay a penny to see the lunatics,Bedlam asylum
was one such place.

Now instead of "spending a penny" we spend millions on
medication and advertising! Just look at all the "freebees"
we got from the drug reps when they visited a ward.

One thing I have noticed here in Turkey is that those individuals who would be called learning disabled in the UK
are treated not only with repect here,but are mostly gainfully employed in a job suitable to their abilties.

I think reverence is much better than medication,don't you!

warmest regards michael.

[austintorn@aol.com]

The brain chemistry is the interplay of neurotransmitters, receptors, ionic channels, signal pathways, openings of cell energy and biosynthesis of neurons and cell partners. (as Mikal put it so well)

When, for example, serotonin drops, due to no exercise, wrong food, genetics, or sever trauma/life, one thought's resort to those of the primitive brain stem: irrationality, anger, severe obsession, clinical depression, 200 bpm heartbeats of anxiety, etc.

Too much dopamine (or was it too little) leads to excessive risk-taking behavior since normals "risks" (life) don't give much satisfaction.

And on and on. These chemical states can pretty much ruin a person's life.

To a much lesser degree, they can happen anytime to anyone, too, perhaps just showing up as a mild bad mood.

DSM-IV contains all the descriptions of abnormal behavior.

Some behavior is only "abnormal", say, in a classroom, like ADHD, but was extremely useful long ago, for those who could see what was happening all over the place didn't get eaten by wild animals as much as one focusing on only one thing of the main event (if the tiger coming out of nowhere was not the main event).

Mikal may not be hinting this, but we are our brains and there is much in this Rube Goldberg contraption that can throw us off.

[labelwench]

Hello Bank Nurse,

I am very interested in your comments in today's two posts. If the following is off topic, don't hesitate to say so.

One of my adult riding students was given an anti-depressant for a time. This student attended a clinic I instructed, among friends, both human and horse.

I have some fascinating video footage of a a well-schooled horse participating with her in groundwork in a 50 round pen.

The horses's body language speaks volumes. The horse is polite at all times, but clearly regards that any request from this person at this time should not be taken in earnest.

Looking forward to more of your posts.

Labelwench

[Bank Nurse]

Hello Bank Nurse,

I am very interested in your comments in today's two posts. If the following is off topic, don't hesitate to say so.

One of my adult riding students was given an anti-depressant for a time. This student attended a clinic I instructed, among friends, both human and horse.

I have some fascinating video footage of a a well-schooled horse participating with her in groundwork in a 50 round pen.

The horses's body language speaks volumes. The horse is polite at all times, but clearly regards that any request from this person at this time should not be taken in earnest.

Looking forward to more of your posts.

Labelwench

Nothing is off topic as far as I am concerned!

These are only suggestions, and I may not have understood what you wrote 100%. Somehow the horse was able to feel that the rider was a little different and for some reason decided to ignore them?

Perhaps equines have a little more in the way of abilities than we know about. I dont know if the person who was with the horse was perhaps feeling a little 'bruised' because they were on medication? Perhpas their confidence wasn't where it would normally be due to being on these drugs?

Did you notice anything different in the persons behaviour? Are their manerisims different? It could be something as 'simple' as eye movments, or perhaps a change in speech.

This is the only thing that I'm able to suggest from my experience as a nurse. Sometimes when people have been taking medications they often loose a little of their 'edge' that they once had...

Take Care,

Chris