Mental illness

Hi

I think you could do a lot worse than get into the ideas of Maurice Brinton, especially "The Irrational in Politics"...

http://www.af-north.org/irrational.html

Brinton (pen name of Chris Pallis) was a celebrated neurologist, and had a great deal to say about mental disorder...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5155211-103684,00.html

His partner in crime was one Cornelius Castoriadis, as well as being a superb economist was also a practicing psychoanalyst...

http://www.psychomedia.it/jep/number6/castoriadis1.htm

That should keep you going for a couple of months.

Cheers

Chris

Hi,

Just an observation really on how certain anarchists have responded to several posters that they disagree with. They regularly use the term 'nutter', 'nutcase', 'nutjob' etc. Not only is this a cheap replacement for political discussion, it is an insult to those with mental health problems, and another capitulation to the capitalist ideology of scapegoating and degrading those who mental powers have been destablised by the mericiless laws of capital.

How does any one with a mental health problem feel when they read these insults!? Maybe these 'radicals' don't care about the feelings of others. It's not a question of being PC but of showing respect for those who are victims of the system, and not using their condition as a term of abuse.

Beltov.

hmm beltov well i think there is a huge difference between the way nutcase and nutjob are used in this context. Knowing people with all sorts of mental issues (im dubious of the term illness) i can well say that the term nutcase gets far more usuage directed towards people with sloppy arguments and wankerish behaviour than it ever gets used towards people with actual mental problems, funny enough I find that alot of the least nutjob people are those who have actually got proper issues. I think it's fair enough to detach the term nutcase as used to mock stupid posts from it's use as an insult to those with mental issues.

anyway in the current society it's only the insane who can remain sane.

redmedic - welcome to the boards... this has been brought up on a number of threads hear and there so have a look around

Yeah there was a discussion here too:

http://libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2990

For views on other aspects of Mental Health Issues you might like to read the following thread too...and perhaps add your comments to it...

http://libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4766

Some good arguments on tha thread. Personally i've had limited experience of the mental health system in the UK, working for part of the organisation in the mids at the mo and there does seem to be a lot of problems not only with the disciplin of psychiatry and the mental health system in general. Theres the obvious things like the emphasis that is put upon the individual as opposed to their surrounding environment, the prevalence of drugs in treatment, the number of incidences in care homes where force is used to control patients, the low pay of your average care worker, etc etc.

However what does seem just as pertinent at the mo is the prevalence of diagnosis of mental health problems amongst younger people, apparently there was a time when those in care homes were predominantly old people, now people as young as 40 are being referred due to dementia, more young people seem to be being diagnosed with mental health problems, now is this just a matter (as was touched upon in one of the threads) of their being more definitions of mental health 'maladies' with which to attach to people (owing much to the pharaceutical industry) or is it because whilst producing more diseases clinically modern society is socially creating more mental health problems through the way society is ordered?

Does the stress associated with economic precarity, living in built up, clostraphopic environments, having huge pressure put on you at school and in education, the prevalence of radio waves and magnetic fields in the environment, the time people spend watching screens in work and at home, the shit thats in the water, living to someone elses dictates etc have a detremental effect on peoples mental well being? And if so how the hell do we research or prove that any one of these elements is a defining factor when non can really be seperated and isolated?

I asked a similar question on Urban75's philosophy/history/theory(/summat like that) forum a couple of months ago.

Hi redmedic

Is it possible that people get more right wing as they get older because of neurological changes in the brain?

Cheers

Chris

I doubt it.

Hi

That doesn't fill me with confidence. Why am I so attracted to the idea do you think?

Peace and Love

Chris

It's a stupid idea. I mean political persuasion doesn't arise from neurological characteristics in the first place does it?

Hi

Well, I'm certainly less convinced of the notion than I was earlier. This is largely as a consequence of other peoples' reaction to the idea.

But, as Kylie would say, I can't seem to get it out of my head, it's nagging away at me. Only she wouldn’t say the last bit.

For some reason when I read the sources above, I'm left thinking that there's something to it. So then I kind of suggest it, and I get kicked back really badly.

And I’m wondering, this is weird.

So there you go. Is everything OK with that, or is there something I’m missing?

Peace and Love

Chris

Hi again

I'm sorry to post this so quickly, but it suddenly came to me.

Have you ever read Brinton's "The Irrational in Politics"? If you have, do you think it's dodgy?

Sorry for the bookishness.

Love

Chris

Just thought I'd post back to this having read the discussions, and not having a chance to reply to them earlier. Redmedic, if you're looking for something to read you could try Madness Explained by Peter Bentall, it gives a theory of madness that says that it isn't outside the realms of everyday experience. People become mad due to traumatic events, and other empirical processes like losing too much sleep due to those traumatic events. Now this guy isn't a radical, but he does seem to explain madness in a more humane way from that of the eugenicist that it's something fundamentally wrong with the individual. Then there's Users and Abusers of Psychiatry by Lucy Johnstone, which basically catalogs the dangers of ECT and medication. And having seen about seven or eight people I know die in the last five years due to complications with their medication, I can assure you she isn't being far-fetched. She is more radical, and she also points up alternatives to current treatments being tried in this country and elsewhere, not that I've been able to find any of the ones running in Britain on the internet. Anyway, hope that is of some help.

And opposed to the psychology approach, there's also EPA research which shows, or might show that there's a fatty acid in the brain, called EPA, which people can take more of that restores their normal brain functioning. THis might be individual-centred, but it's a lot less harmful than medication, (i.e. no noticeable side effects) and if people end up sane, then it might be good!! Dr Basan Pouri is the guy to check out, although I might not have spelled his name properly.

Cheers

D

Intrigued by the notion of as one gets older one gets more conservative. It's well known that after the age of say, 25, one starts to lose brain cells at a high rate of knots. Perhaps we can equate conservativism with cerebral sclerosis, both degenerative diseases.

I spent years studying psychiatry. Then got a friendly consultant to admit me to a psychiatric ward as a "pretend patient". I learned more about psychiatry in my three days of admission than I had in all my career. I came away no longer able to believe in psychiatry. All sorts of career implications in that.

Peter Good (of The Cunningham Amendment)

yeay go me. more than halfway dead already and i still kick ass

seriously though i fail to see the connection between the loss of brain cells and exhibiting more conservative behaviour. why is that more likely than any other type of behaviour to be generated by the breakdown of neural connections in the brain?

Well I guess if you're not able to make as many new neural connections, you'll end up being kind of stuck in the same thought patterns and less open to new ideas. Which is, in a sense, conservative.

Oh yeah, and if you want to know what psychosis is like, read The One by Paul Reed, it's an insider's view on the brain when you're crazy. But all he needed was a cup of tea and a chat.

I think a more likely explanation for people becoming more conservative as they become older is that they acquire more responsibilities, which forces most people to modify their behaviours to raise families etc. Much in the way that Thatcher introducing the sell-off of council housing was a master stroke by her class, as it made people think twice before action that might compromise their families homes.

I categorise that kind of stuff in the 'rubbish' file together with the criminal and gay genes.

I also agree that most illness of that kind is related to traumatic experiences, poverty or alienation in general.

Quite.

Still, increasing difficulty in making new neural connections could still be a contributing factor. But probably a very minor one compared to the responsibility thing.

Hi

I'm closer to your positions than, perhaps, you think.

The angle that I’m pursuing is that authoritarian conditioning (such as “accepting one responsibilities”, Thatcher’s masterstroke above etc) set up a feed-back cycle of behaviour, perception and changes in the brain’s chemistry.

The perception of responsibility as a conditioned response made easier by chemical changes in our brains as we age.

It’s far away from the “crime-gene” style axe that some may be forgiven for thinking I’m grinding.

I’m thinking along the lines of linking authoritarian conditioning and, say, depression or mid-life neurosis and the material neurological phenomena that accompany them.

I’m fascinated by the how reactionary thought is linked to a particular psychological outlook towards maintenance of self esteem and status, and how that is effected by brain chemistry and social conditioning. I’m wondering if, in a limited sense for some people, natural chemical changes in our brain make us more “worried” about these things (perhaps to enable us to bring up families or some other evolutionarily advantageous effect).

If you watch too much East Enders and read too much Daily Mail you become conditioned to emulate them (as a Citizens Advice Bureau volunteer I have evidence to suggest this is really happening). I’m wondering if there is an “addictive” loop effect here caught up with the changes in the brains seritonin uptake due to the particular psychological effects of digesting this material. That would be a similar habituating effect similar to mood changing drugs.

I’m going to post some links…

Maurice Brinton’s - The Irrational In Politics

http://www.af-north.org/irrational.html

Veblen and status

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class#Economic_drive

Serotonin and anxiety

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin

There’s a lot of material about the place on the brain chemistry of anxiety, how authoritarian conditioning causes anxiety and how aging is associated with anxiety and changes in brain chemistry. The discussion is cyclic, but then that befits it’s nature as it explores a complex feed-back based process.

I’ve no right wing agenda here, but I am up for a ruthless exploration of the connection between neurology, psychology and politics.

I’m pretty sure Brinton/Pallis would approve.

Love

Chris

I apologize for posting this before I've even read all this thread but was just wondering if you've any thoughts on Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality of Fromm's Fear of Freedom? I'm supposed to be reading both of them for my dissertation but am procrastinating like fuck.

I've read bit of Adorno and come across a few criticisms - the main one being that the book focusses on on individual psychology rather than existing social relations (although I think that was their expressed intention and they intended to deal with social factors later. A mate told me Fromm might be better because he's more of a social psychiatrist and relates authoritarian personality traits to class rather than an individual syndrome.

Sorry if this a bit random.

Hi lucy82

That's an important question. I'm no expert, but I've read acedmic texts which suggest that disorderd behaviour arises as a consequence of having a distorted percepetion of reality.

I'm imagining that reactionary politics arise from a similar distorted perception of reality.

I'm concerned with linking sociopathic hostility and reactionary politics via authortarian conditioning. I'm also interested in the brain chemistry of the conditioned mind and how the relates to advertising, drug addiction and questions of self esteem and that kind of thing.

Love etc

Chris

Fromm is a God! Sane Society especially deals with the concept of society's affect on mental ill health, how that exists through unequal political and economic systems and ways of dealing with that. His conclusions are libertarian socialist if not anarchist, though I'm not aware he ever associated himself with anarchism.

Hi

I concur with your perspective. Would you agree that personality disorders and neuroses have similar causes?

Do you see authortarian conditioning as a kind of "traumatic event", and do you think that neurological effects can occur both as a consequence and as a cause in a complex feed back loop of behavior and thought.

Is consiousness a physiological phenomon, or is it supernatural?

Cheers

Chris

Yeah, I think all psychological problems are linked, I got most of my ideas from reading this book by Bentall, and actually being crazy. And he reckons that neuroses are caused by similar processes to psychosis, although he doesn't actually cover them in his book. Certainly, I think Authoritarian conditioning causes a lot of mental health problems, if someone treats you like shit constantly, and you have no way of avoiding that, like bullies in school, authoritarian parents, bosses, then you begin to doubt yourself and feel bad about yourself. And taken to extremes then this doubt and anxiety can cause chemical changes in the brain that lead you to doubt reality as well. And if people are angry and bitter and unhappy, then they're more likely to turn to simplistic explanations of society and their problems, like poverty will always be with us, blaming neds for anti-social behaviour, and thus more likely to believe the Daily Mail, as it feeds their hate, as that has been their first rational response to their problems. Thus creating more authoritarian conditioning. Instead of seeing the problem in the authoritarian conditioning in the first place. Phew.

Yeah, Fear of Freedom is a damn fine book, I used it for my dissertation as well, on Gaelic novels, although he talks more about Protestants than mental illness, which is kind of useful in the Highlands. Most adorno stuff is good, if a tad depressing.

Abolish Psychiatry! Freedom for the Mad! Be nice to one another!

Hi

Bodach, I can see that you and I are as one on this and many other matters. You're a breath of fresh air my friend.

Now redyred, I think you may have been a bit quick to dismiss my investigation. For the sake of those joining this thread recently I’m going to repost the three (I’ll concede of questionable providence) links that first set me off on this sorry episode in the first place…

How the brain changes as you age…

http://opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/01/02/do0202.xml

How psychology affects political philosophy…

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml

How anxiety feeds reactionary philosophy…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1017505,00.html

My position is that there is a cycle of authoritarian conditioning, behavioural coercion and psychological changes that create a tendency towards a family of misanthropic philosophical outlooks. The psychological changes have a neurological rather than a supernatural cause. The neurological changes in question are partially concerned with the cycle of conditioning, but are also encouraged by natural changes in brain physiology as we age.

Here is a fascinating thesis on the psychology of ideology…

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/undergrad/research/amass_thesis.pdf

I suppose my premise is that the neurological changes in our brains associated with ageing give rise to psychological effects that tend towards those that drive conservatism. Close mindedness, intolerance, anxiety, misanthropy.

Unfortunately, I’ve recently discovered that this field of research has only been looked at properly in the last 10 years or so, which leaves me, at best, in something of an inconclusive position.

I wonder where redmedic has got to? I’d like to think he could shed some light on this. Peter Good, maybe you can add some insights.

I still haven’t quite got to the bottom of why the likes of redyred and John. are so hostile to the suggestion. I hope it isn’t personal, maybe they’re just uptight about something, is it taboo?

I always think that the most aggressive posters, with all their bitching and swearing, are displaying a degree of inner unhappiness. Anxiety breeds a short temper. In a distasteful piece of self-promotion, I’ll point everyone off to what’s happening on a different thread…

http://libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=61777#61777

As if that isn’t enough, I read a fascinating (if self-contradictory) article on “The Sociology And Psychology Of Terrorism”. The psychological differences and similarities between, say, PIRA operatives and Islamists were especially interesting. The role of depression in acts of misanthropic violence is as clear within terrorist organisations as it is in the public at large.

Peace + Love

Chris