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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)

#91

Post by mercer »

Mz wrote: post #55
joe_the_user wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given this is on the level the speculative, one thing to consider is that the initial condition of the schizophrenic might be delusion, hallucination and the disintegration of one's sense of reality - and when that happens, the result in a modern society with no support for the phenomena could be massive stress , stress being a factor which many are today blaming for much mental illness. That is to say that shamanic…

As someone who has dealt with some mental health stuff ("crap in my head" /technical term), I can testify firsthand that a) how it gets framed and b) how others around me respond to it make a really huge difference in how it impacts me -- anywhere from "weird, but functional" to "odd source of useful insight" to "losing my shit and I think I shall go play in traffic now."

Indeed! I've been able to compare friends with similar issues either deal with them as a problem to fix or suppress (therapy, medication, etc.), or as a 'weird, but functional' state to 'live with'. The latter, assuming they were functional enough and assuming they found a place, social group and general environment where their 'issues' were accepted, always were much better off.

That's not an argument to avoid therapy or medication, far from it, but at the very least it's should make one pause and think about finding a balance between 'fixing the person with the issues to fit in his current environment' and 'finding an environment/approach for that person to be happy with their issues'. Too often I feel that we err on the side of 'fixing'.

It reminds me a bit of the way bloodletting was once a solution to many things. Turns out that it often made things worse, and only in specific cases actually helps. Let's try to not make that same mistake.

(Also, more recently I've experienced this phenomenon personally, and I notice the same thing. The more I focus on 'fixing' or 'fitting in', the worse I'm off and the worse my problems are. On the other hand, the more I focus on finding a way to be accepted as I am, the better I am able to actually counteract my problems')

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

#92

Post by mercer »

krapp wrote: post #51
malka wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

false dichotomy - "locking someone away" is not the only way modern society deals with the mentally ill.

But repression (medication) or fixing (therapy) is closer to 'locking away' than it is to giving purpose or providing acceptance.

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

#93

Post by interesting_att »

taurath wrote: post #61
dikdik wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some really interesting research out there on schizophrenia. "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." http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/july/voices-culture-luhrm...

The implications are huge - if you are more prone to actively resist or think that its wrong it will actively trigger panic, PTSD, anxiety and paranoia. If you think of them as spirits and your society values them its not a big deal, sometimes even possible helpful?

It seems intuitive to me. People who often do psychedelic drugs routinely state that 'resisting' the experience often leads to temporary mental distress.

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

#95

Post by DanBC »

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…

> and I doubt anyone with a severe case could heal or make art

...or create an OS?

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

#96

Post by DanBC »

Kinnard wrote: post #19

I imagine its hard to get good data on mental illness let alone a good definition of what "mental illness" is across societies. Is homosexuality still considered a mental illness in most of the world?

Homosexuality was listed in ICD 9 and earlier. ICD 9 was created in about 1975 - 1978.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Statistical_Clas...

Homosexuality was removed from ICD 10. ICD 10 was created in about 1983 - 1990

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Statistical_Clas...

Individual countries may be using their own definitions. EG US uses DSM.

DSM included homosexuality in the first version published in about 1952, but it was scrutinised early and homosexuality was removed from DSM in 1973.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality#Psychology

Things like conversion therapy have been weirdly hard to stop, even with clear advice from professional bodies and regulators that it's probably harmful and has no evidence of efficacy or usefulness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy

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

#97

Post by nommm-nommm »

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…

What is "verbal intelligence" and how is it measured? Why can't yours be measured?

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

#98

Post by fsloth »

nightspirit wrote: post #86
fsloth wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Possibly unpopular opinion: school is not negotiable for children and so there's no guiding. It's pure coercion." There are lot's of things which are non-negotiable for children. Things like brushing teeth, going to bed and washing hands after toilet. All of which have some intrinsic value beyond tradition. Coercion is the action or practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats. . There ar…

> If a child goes routinely to school I would not call this an action under coercion I'm actually young enough to remember what school looked like and I'm sure as hell many of the kids wouldn't attend if they didn't know that they are going to be forced by their parents or the nanny state anyway.

Sorry, I'm a bit of a pedantic in discussions here.

To simplify the situation let's claim that children do not go to school unless prompted by their parents. This is then an influence attempt by the parent to make the child follow with their directives.

Such an attempt has usually three possible outcomes: commitment, compliance or conflict.

Just because coercion can be used as an influence tactic does not mean it's always necessary to do so. Also, it seldom leads to the most preferred outcome (commitment).

The point was - not all influence tactics can be categorized as coercion - not that the hypothetical child would not need external influence to attend school.

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

#99

Post by fsloth »

jostylr wrote: post #87
fsloth wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Possibly unpopular opinion: school is not negotiable for children and so there's no guiding. It's pure coercion." There are lot's of things which are non-negotiable for children. Things like brushing teeth, going to bed and washing hands after toilet. All of which have some intrinsic value beyond tradition. Coercion is the action or practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats. . There ar…

For school, it is illegal not to attend. This means in America that people with guns can forcibly detain children not in school during the school day. Police proudly do so in an attempt to defeat crime since, in their opinion, all children not under the watch of an adult are criminals. How can being threatened with gun violence by the authorities not be coercion? They also have the power to rip a child from their par…

I would generally call that a very poor situational awareness by the persons holding executive power.

If the higher level goal for a state is to make people follow the law, then starting with violent coercion is a stupid influence tactic. There are other influence tactics as well.

But, if the culture is such that coercive tactics take precedence then I suppose you can have a point. I would not start to unravel this by deregulating schooling but by fixing the habits and culture of the executive personnel, though.

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