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Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

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Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#41

Post by meric »

krapp wrote: post #34
butterfinger wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it any more coercive than putting those kids into psychiatric care and putting them on drugs that just make them not feel anything anymore? I'm schizotypal myself and I can say those methods of coping with this have not helped me at all. By now, I understand most of my paranormal thoughts are just windows into the unconcious mind. I think that having a centuries old tradition of identifying and using these tho…

>By now, I understand most of my paranormal thoughts are just windows into the unconcious mind. Probably because a scientific framework of mind exists which you have access to, which allows you to accept that what goes on in your mind doesn't always correspond to reality. In a shamanistic society, you might still be led to believe you had magic powers, and that it was all real, and that you had to follow certain ritu…

Stanford anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann found that voice-hearing experiences of people with serious psychotic disorders are shaped by local culture – in the United States, the voices are harsh and threatening; in Africa and India, they are more benign and playful.

What if these voices are reflective of the emotional state of the people around them, as this quote suggests?

In that case, that is a kind of "magic", a special ability only you possess, that is real, and if you followed certain rituals your own emotional state could stabilise to such a point where you have the ability to detect what people are feeling.

And if this is true, then yes, a shaman would know more about what's going on in a person's mind than a doctor.

If you close your eyes, it doesn't mean the world isn't real. Just because you can't see something with the scientific framework, yet, does not mean it cannot be true.

Anyway, I don't see what coercion has got to do with shaman's in particular. There was plenty of people captured as slaves, in conflicts between prehistoric tribes, and that's a lot more coercion happening than in a schizophrenic being picked out as a shaman. There's probably less mental illness in prehistoric societies, because people probably didn't care much about a slave going crazy, it's likely unsurprising that happens, and you just kill them off.

I think coercion comes in cycles. Just after U.S. independence from Britain was probably less coercion than before U.S. independence. Today there is probably more coercion in U.S. than in 1850. There is less coercion today in Shanghai than in 1960, but probably more than in 1925.

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#42

Post by benbreen »

api wrote: post #24
butterfinger wrote: post #14

Another point that this article does not discuss is that in many of the "less coercive" societies, schizophrenia or related diseases are not seen as a disease or problematic at all. McKenna writes: "A shaman is someone who swims in the same ocean as the schizophrenic, but the shaman has thousands and thousands of years of sanctioned technique and tradition to draw upon. In a traditional society, if you exhibited “sch…

I love McKenna's raps but I really disagree with him here. I doubt he had much experience with actual schizophrenia, which is horrific and debilitating, and I doubt shamans present or past actually had it. Psychedelic drugs induce a superficially schizophrenia-like state but it's transient and may not actually be much like schizophrenia at all. Visionary, trance, and highly imaginative states are not schizophrenia or…

Agreed completely. I was sympathetic to arguments like his right up until the time when my brother began acting weird and fell into a downward spiral that ultimately led to a schizophrenia diagnosis. What really sticks out to me is the brain damage-like effects of the disease - not just paranoia and delusions but a total breakdown in verbal and reasoning abilities. What my brother suffers from really is more comparable to Alzheimers or even forms of brain damage or post-stroke states than other mental illnesses I've encountered - it's not so much a visionary state as it is a crippling disability. Really grim stuff, and I suspect that many people who glamorize it don't have firsthand experience with the destruction it can cause.

To end with a somewhat more positive note, the late Oliver Sacks has written beautifully and with great sympathy and humanity about his brother's battle with schizophrenia - I think it's mainly in his "chemical memoir" Uncle Tungsten. I've often wished that he wrote a whole book on the subject but I guess it hit a little too close to home for him.

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#43

Post by mtdewcmu »

api wrote: post #24
butterfinger wrote: post #14

Another point that this article does not discuss is that in many of the "less coercive" societies, schizophrenia or related diseases are not seen as a disease or problematic at all. McKenna writes: "A shaman is someone who swims in the same ocean as the schizophrenic, but the shaman has thousands and thousands of years of sanctioned technique and tradition to draw upon. In a traditional society, if you exhibited “sch…

I love McKenna's raps but I really disagree with him here. I doubt he had much experience with actual schizophrenia, which is horrific and debilitating, and I doubt shamans present or past actually had it. Psychedelic drugs induce a superficially schizophrenia-like state but it's transient and may not actually be much like schizophrenia at all. Visionary, trance, and highly imaginative states are not schizophrenia or…

It's doubtful that schizophrenia is all nurture, but it seems conceivable that coercive circumstances could aggravate a case of schizophrenia, taking a subclinical case and making it floridly symptomatic. Coercion could possibly tip the scales into psychosis.

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#44

Post by Mz »

mtdewcmu wrote: post #43
api wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love McKenna's raps but I really disagree with him here. I doubt he had much experience with actual schizophrenia, which is horrific and debilitating, and I doubt shamans present or past actually had it. Psychedelic drugs induce a superficially schizophrenia-like state but it's transient and may not actually be much like schizophrenia at all. Visionary, trance, and highly imaginative states are not schizophrenia or…

It's doubtful that schizophrenia is all nurture, but it seems conceivable that coercive circumstances could aggravate a case of schizophrenia, taking a subclinical case and making it floridly symptomatic. Coercion could possibly tip the scales into psychosis.

From what I gather, it is not unusual for schizophrenics to be hospitalized, get better, be sent home to their effed up family and promptly get worse again.

My life experience strongly biases me towards believing that how it gets handled absolutely makes a difference ("it" = any mental health issue).

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#45

Post by [deleted] »

benbreen wrote: post #42
api wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love McKenna's raps but I really disagree with him here. I doubt he had much experience with actual schizophrenia, which is horrific and debilitating, and I doubt shamans present or past actually had it. Psychedelic drugs induce a superficially schizophrenia-like state but it's transient and may not actually be much like schizophrenia at all. Visionary, trance, and highly imaginative states are not schizophrenia or…

Agreed completely. I was sympathetic to arguments like his right up until the time when my brother began acting weird and fell into a downward spiral that ultimately led to a schizophrenia diagnosis. What really sticks out to me is the brain damage-like effects of the disease - not just paranoia and delusions but a total breakdown in verbal and reasoning abilities. What my brother suffers from really is more comparab…

[deleted]

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#46

Post by api »

benbreen wrote: post #42
api wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love McKenna's raps but I really disagree with him here. I doubt he had much experience with actual schizophrenia, which is horrific and debilitating, and I doubt shamans present or past actually had it. Psychedelic drugs induce a superficially schizophrenia-like state but it's transient and may not actually be much like schizophrenia at all. Visionary, trance, and highly imaginative states are not schizophrenia or…

Agreed completely. I was sympathetic to arguments like his right up until the time when my brother began acting weird and fell into a downward spiral that ultimately led to a schizophrenia diagnosis. What really sticks out to me is the brain damage-like effects of the disease - not just paranoia and delusions but a total breakdown in verbal and reasoning abilities. What my brother suffers from really is more comparab…

> What really sticks out to me is the brain damage-like effects of the disease

Absolutely... there's an incoherence to true (not armchair diagnosed) schizophrenia. The mind falls apart.

Traditional shamans and modern ones like McKenna himself might hold ideas that some might find irrational, but their thought patterns are coherent and their reasoning ability is there. They're lucid and can think. McKenna's brilliant wordsmithing is the polar opposite of what you see with degenerative mental illness.

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#47

Post by Jupe »

I think the author jumps to some conclusions here - not sure what is cause and effect.

Is it possible that people stricken by serious mental illness in these societies simply die? I have some experience with mental illness and I can see how someone 'out of their mind' could easily die young when exposed to the elements.

I don't have direct evidence, but I believe the mortality rate in rural / isolated societies is higher than in more cultivated societies.

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#48

Post by MawNicker »

krapp wrote: post #34
butterfinger wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it any more coercive than putting those kids into psychiatric care and putting them on drugs that just make them not feel anything anymore? I'm schizotypal myself and I can say those methods of coping with this have not helped me at all. By now, I understand most of my paranormal thoughts are just windows into the unconcious mind. I think that having a centuries old tradition of identifying and using these tho…

>By now, I understand most of my paranormal thoughts are just windows into the unconcious mind. Probably because a scientific framework of mind exists which you have access to, which allows you to accept that what goes on in your mind doesn't always correspond to reality. In a shamanistic society, you might still be led to believe you had magic powers, and that it was all real, and that you had to follow certain ritu…

It's all as real as humans are real. Every person has a mind that exists partially beyond the objective reality we all share. Those experiences are real even if they don't represent reality. They affect reality to the extant that humans do. Schizophrenia is dissociation from objective reality. A mind that is disproportionately subjective. An echo-chamber of thought. Even as a disability and not a "magical power" it does inspire a compensatory inclination. Like lip reading for deaf people. They have a mind that is desperately seeking the truth they know they are without. Truth as simply the coordination of thought and reality. A society able to mediate this inclination would be a treat to live in. It is, unfortunately, certainly not the one I live in. No one has time for that shit. Isn't there some way to just "fix" these people? They're obnoxious. Don't tell them I said that I don't want to be blamed for making them worse.

We've internalized a world of psychic war and we see nothing but liabilities. If we had the same reverence for wackos that we do for other victims we may be far better off. The wackos certainly would be. Is that coercion? Can you see anything else?

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#49

Post by malka »

krapp wrote: post #34
butterfinger wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it any more coercive than putting those kids into psychiatric care and putting them on drugs that just make them not feel anything anymore? I'm schizotypal myself and I can say those methods of coping with this have not helped me at all. By now, I understand most of my paranormal thoughts are just windows into the unconcious mind. I think that having a centuries old tradition of identifying and using these tho…

>By now, I understand most of my paranormal thoughts are just windows into the unconcious mind. Probably because a scientific framework of mind exists which you have access to, which allows you to accept that what goes on in your mind doesn't always correspond to reality. In a shamanistic society, you might still be led to believe you had magic powers, and that it was all real, and that you had to follow certain ritu…

Both are coercitive, but one locks the individual away, and the other one gives him purpose.

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#50

Post by joe_the_user »

PaulHoule wrote: post #3

Mental illness is a complex entity. Beware of any simple "definition of insanity" I recently discovered I have a mutation which makes my verbal intelligence too high to measure but has negative effects in other areas. Other people have similar variations. Some kinds of mental illness such as schizophrenia seem very much to be a biological phenomenon, but stress and particularly the way stress is structured has a defi…

Hmm,

It seems contradictory to first note problems in defining insanity and then make a claim of vast "verbal intelligence", a quality a bit further out on the fringes of psychology definition.

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