Phiolosophy of psychiatry....

[Bank Nurse]

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.

What an excellent reply! Thank you! However I have a few points that I would like to raise with you.

Okay, take someone who is acting 'abnormally' sometimes I would act in a way that isn't perhaps 'normal' but does that mean I have a mental disorder? I mean there are entries in the DSM that reference difficulties in doing Algebra as being the criteria for a mental disorder. I hate night clubs and busy places full of people who are drinking alchol. It makes me feel very out of place indeed. This could be considered as social anxeity - if it was I wouldn't care.

Would I want drugs for this? Nope. Do I think that there is a gene for this? Perhaps, but I would say that if there was a gene that I had that others didn't and it were linked to social situations there would be much more to play than this. Such as my upbringing and personality.

I can feel myself in these situations getting anxious, and even sad, but when would this become a mental illness? What if I never went into those environments ever again? Surely I would be cured!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I dont know how strong the correlation is between the physiological changes that you list and the visible changes in behavour. Ultimatley, there is very little in the way of 'general' testing when someone goes into a psychoatric hospital. There will be a family tree done on admission and that will be it. No brain scanns and no genetic tests either. When brain serotonin drops isn't there a huge complex chain of reactions that cascade? I dont think it is as simple as a drop in a neurotransmitter.

I'm extremly interested in what you, or anyone else, has to say about this.

Take care,

Chris

[labelwench]

Hello Chris,

Thank you for your comments and I shall clarify matters somewhat further.

In the round pen, the person was not riding the horse in this lesson, although she had considerable experience riding and owned horses of her own.

I instruct equine communication and we were herding the horse, in the same manner as another "boss horse" would. We would ask the horse to move away from us, change direction, speed up, slow down or halt while at liberty, an exercise that both the horse and the person were quite experienced at from previous sessions. We were further refining these skills in this lesson.

The medication involved was Prozac, as I recall.

To the observers, this person seemed to be doing all of the "moves" correctly. She also was carrying a lunge whip to communicate to the horse that her own personal space was slightly larger than that of the horse; that she would be the leader in this herd of two.

The horse, after observing her briefly, almost shrugged and turned it's attention to trying to get blades of grass from beween the planks that form the round pen wall. This is the ultimate in polite equine rudeness.

The person repeatedly escalated her motion, speed and energy, to the point of actually tapping the horse lightly with the whip, to no avail.

Several other students followed, and in each case, the horse responded appropriately to every request by each subsequent student.

Horses are very sensitive to energy patterns and body language. I say this with confidence as I earned the household income for many years by teaching to people what horses have taught me.

My personal theory is that the medication was changing the actual communication energy as perceived by the horse. To the horse, she seemed like an entirely different indvidual, not the one that this horse knew from previous relationship and had respect for.

I come back to my earlier point. In debriefing the students, none of them could see any physical difference in the manner that this student was presenting her cues to the horse and this was a small class of very observant and progressive horse enthusiasts.

Trusting that this gives you a little more to analyse and work from.

Regards,

Lor----

[Bank Nurse]

How interesting! I would suggest that your on the right lines. Have you ever been with a close friend or a family member and been able to 'feel' that something is different or odd? Or perhaps a feeling when you meet someone and it either makes you feel uneasy or at ease?

Well I would say the following. Much of what we acknoledge when it comes to mental disorders is based on what we see, in least for the most part. However I would like to raise the following. I think that it is possible to sense and feel when someone is not 'normal'. Now, I hate using the term normal as it is exactly this that causes bullying and racism.

However, I think that it is easy to 'feel' if someone is not 'right', I can''t really describe it. Perhaps the horse was the same? Perhaps the horse wasn't able to communicate with the person, or visa versa, due to their respective situations?

Trying to put a slightly philosophical twist on the story, if we need to, then why is it so easy for us to see the differences in the different horse riders/trainers, yet the similarities often go unnoticed? Would a persons mood effect their performance? I think that the answer is yes! But I will have to do some more thinking before I can contribute anything more than this to your story.

Many thanks for the stimulating discussion.

Chris

[Mikal]

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.

Hi Austie....when it comes to our very complicated, fragile and inter-connected neural system of which I listed....these were the words of Dr. Heinrich Kremer, not mine!! However, hope you did not miss the word "RISK" for in that study he was attempting to maximize his warnings to the medical profession as to risks taken when interfering into that inner system through injecting foreign substances into such a fragile system.

Mikal is hinting at nothing....I would tell you quite frankly that we are consciousness and the fragile, inter-connected system Dr. Kremer noted would be the system consciousness utilizes...seems consciousness as to level of performance would more than likely be determined by connectivity, nerve impulse and connection....best to have the environment of the brain in a state of health for the possibility of "brightness" of consciousness...



Mikal

[austintorn@aol.com]

Hi Nurse,

DSM-IV doesn’t usually give just one criteria for a condition, but usually 6 or 7 and more, such as to have a panic attack from panic disorder would be, noting, of course, that it comes “out of the blue” when there is no source at all of a panic present (one could even be asleep):

It might say, then, that 4 or 5 of these 9 need be present:

1. Extremely high heart rate (180 bpm and up).
2. Trembling.
3. Don’t wish to move or be touched.
4. Feeling of suffocation and constriction of chest.
5. Feeling the emotion of dying.
6. Sweating.
7. Feeling an adrenaline wave.
8. Fainting.
9. Fragmentation of self.

For example, some symptoms, such as 6, 7 & 8 are probably optional, as they don’t always happen or get noticed, plus 9 might not be quite understood.

Panic disorder is not a good thing. You could crash your car.

My son studied Abnormal Psychology in college, so I studied it with him.


Anyway, not liking algebra or night clubs is no an indication by itself. We all have some degree of brain health variance, perhaps like 10% depressed, 5% obsessive, and so forth, this is all just the absolutely normal stuff of being human.

It is only when brain health gets really out of whack that one will have a large problem living life.

Seriously anxious and/or depressed people can get aggressive and lose friends, lives, marriages and jobs and so forth.

Obsessives are bothered night and day by the persistence of very intrusive and repetitive thoughts, often falling for them hook, line, and sinker. They might wash their hands 50 times a day and/or come home from work to make sure the coffee maker is turned off. They might even bring the coffee maker to work so they don’t have to go home and check it.

ADD causes one to miss the main event, being distracted by things that don’t matter so much, giving them way too much attention, even, like a cloud shadow going by; however, they can’t much help it, for a wrong signal goes off, more like a siren or an alarm bell that says “ATTENTION: this is VERY IMPORTANT”. Meanwhile, the main event of living passes by, piles and clutters of stuff usually building up around the home. They can get angry if others don’t see the importance that they claim about certain things.

Another time: the trade off between drug side effects and the desire to feel normal and be able to live life.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Hi Bank,

Serotonin is a “biggie” in psychiatry, as low levels of it are the root of obsession, depression, and anxiety. Serotonin is a kind of traffic director of the brain’s signals. And of course there is more to the resultant cascade, as you say.

In the central nervous system, serotonin plays an important role as a neurotransmitter in the modulation of anger, aggression, body temperature, mood, sleep, human sexuality, appetite, and metabolism.

Serotonin has broad activities in the brain, and genetic variation in serotonin receptors and the serotonin transporter, which facilitates reuptake of serotonin into presynapses, have been implicated in neurological diseases, as well as lifestyles.

Drugs targeting serotonin-induced pathways are being used in the treatment of many psychiatric disorders. However, although drugs target a specific serotonin receptor, inhibiting its reuptake (and thus providing more of it), the other types of serotonin receptors for things like sex and sleep are so similar that they can often be affected by the drugs as well (these are side effects).

It’s up to the patient to decide if the “cure” outweighs the side effects. To help with insomnia, one could take the pill in the morning instead of at night. The sex dampening feelings may go away or one may choose to live with it as a much lessor of two “evils”.

Cognitive therapy is needed, as well, to have a multi-approach.

Also, since depressed, anxious people are already prone to suicide, they may still do it, but some don’t have the “oomph” to carry through on it. As some drugs take 3-5 weeks to work, the drugs may provide the “oomph” before they provide the feeling of normalcy, so the patients beginning drug treatment must be carefully watched.

Yes, life is often a compromise.

[austintorn@aol.com]

I would tell you quite frankly that we are consciousness and the fragile, inter-connected system Dr. Kremer noted would be the system consciousness utilizes...

Telling “frankly” does not mean truth. It is just your wish. Consciousness is not a thing floating around by itself like a soul. Consciousness is not even a thing in itself or some container that results are poured into; it is the tail end of a process of what the brain does, a resultant global brain state of the brain’s subconscious analysis.

Our environment, inside and out, is symbolically represented in the brain, our memories and cross-associations recognizing and remembering the meaning of what we “see”, think, feel, and witness in the unified experience of living life as a being.

We all know how wonderful and quick the brain is, it nearly instantly processing visuals, sounds, touches, tastes, and odours into higher and deeper sub systems; how it searches memory so quickly for what is known, such as what the letters and words of this post mean, forming an abundance of further thoughts and actions based thereupon and so forth and so on, one hundred billions brain cells winking and blinking and connecting, making their results known consciously, at the last, continuing on in a train of thoughts ever becoming and arising in almost a kind of competition for attention.

Some propose that this does not happen, even that the brain does nothing or that it suddenly hands off its information in mid-stride to “somewhere else”, called the “soul”, “mind” or “consciousness” that somehow continues the processing by using some outside invisible guidance.

Ask where is the soul and no one knows, for it is invisible. What does it do that the brain doesn’t? No one knows. How does it attach to a person? No one knows. When does it attach? No one knows. Does it have eternal life? No one knows, but many certainly wish for it. How does it operate? No one knows. What sent it? No one knows. How can it interface back and forth with the material brain without being of the material and talking that language? No one knows. Why is it there? No one knows.

The extraordinary claim of the soul has no evidence at all, while the extraordinary claims of the brain’s doings and it being the mind have extraordinary evidence.

Yet some mammals continue to employ the world “soul” because they wish it to be “something” that makes them so absolutely special and of such extreme importance that they deserve an infinite reward of eternal life forever in the most ultimate place that there is. What hubris! Not just any hubris, but the maximum amount of hubris that is possible: All.

We know that consciousness is of the brain because we can introduce molecules into brain areas, by anesthesia, and turn off consciousness completely. Consciousness has no independent existence.

[Mikal]

Gee did I touch a nerve!!!! Never mind the revelations of Thomas Szasz you better go to history and study the classics like Charles Galton Darwin: "The Next Million Years" and Bertrand Russell: "The Scientific Outlook". Oh..and don't forget Julian Huxley where he discussed it would be quite okay to drug the masses, it would dumb down IQ and they would easily be led into the Scientific experiment like Sheeple....you could also throw in Emile Durkheim and also Paulo Freire....might as well balance out the equation of what is covertly done to the unsuspecting masses....also try some of the new and more indepth studies into the Hitler nightmare...present day researchers have reached a point where absolute honesty is about the only ethical choice we have to deal with this nightmare in our societies....

Great thinkers create society and culture and they also change, alter and collapse society and culture....



Mikal

[austintorn@aol.com]

Unfortunately for you and your post, Mikal, I was not speaking of drugging the masses or Hitler or dishonesty in medicine.

I don't see your reply as related to my post content.

This thread is about psychiatry, not madmen who would use any means necessary to subdue the world.

(I don't post from nerves.)

[Graybeard]

Gee did I touch a nerve!!!!

Not really, you just got it wrong.

Oh..and don't forget Julian Huxley where he discussed it would be quite okay to drug the masses, it would dumb down IQ and they would easily be led into the Scientific experiment like Sheeple........also try some of the new and more indepth studies into the Hitler nightmare...

The word 'Eugenics' conjures up such a nightmare for you, that you consider it not even legitmate to mention or discuss it. Eugenics WILL play some part in the future of this planet, it already does so now. It is not all bad, nor is it tied up in conspiracy theories as you always imply.

present day researchers have reached a point where absolute honesty is about the only ethical choice we have to deal with this nightmare in our societies....

If honesty is the only choice left to current researchers does that mean previous researchers had a greater choice ??? ....... sigh.

The future is always uncertain, we need to carry with us all the technology we have as we go forward. Evolution is responsible for all life and environment. Ethics is not a word in its vocabulary. We may not like it, but it is nonetheless true.

Instead of always railing against organisations and governments as conspirators why don't you try looking on the sunny side of the street. Optimism is a word even Pessimists can spell ... and it is in Evolution's vocabulary.

cool bananas ... greg