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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)

#101

Post by astazangasta »

jessriedel wrote: post #17
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'm willing to bet that the welfare of the average schizophrenic is quite poor essentially everywhere in the world, a handful of tribes supporting them for myth-related reasons notwithstanding.

You lose your bet. Outcomes for schizophrenia (recovery) are substantially better in developing countries compared to developed ones, sometimes called the WHO paradox. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26640277

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

#102

Post by astazangasta »

On the subject of schizophrenia, the most interesting and insightful thinker I have read is John Weir Perry: http://global-vision.org/papers/JWP.pdf His notion is that schizophrenia is a normal process to reorder the mind to heal from severe psychic trauma, which neuroleptics interrupt and prolong.

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

#103

Post by FreedomToCreate »

MrTonyD wrote: post #72
Aeolun wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not very surprising that some form of education makes you more likely to be successful, but does it necessarily have to be the institutional form of school?

It's hard not to fall into the trap created by a society with "business values". Should it really be considered less successful to be someone who builds an energy-efficient building which may last for centuries? Should a simple handyman really be paid drastically less than someone with a PhD? I'm not against differentials in salary. But I do think that our present system is completely messed up.

If you look at it from the point if the economy, a handy man is a easily achievable job, meaning the number of handy man is large. Since there are so many of them, there is a large competition between them, lowering the value of there pay. What they do it specialized but not special. Some who differentiate themselves do make a lot more money. On the other hand a PHD is very difficult to achieve and a much smaller portion of the population receive on. On top of that a PHD makes you specialized on a topic, potentially making you a unique source of information which is worth a lot.

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

#104

Post by Mz »

mercer wrote: post #91
Mz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thera…

Sometimes, a "crazy" person needs justice. Their life needs to be fixed, not their head.

Some of my mental health stuff was rooted in being molested at age 3 or 4. I suppressed those memories until I was in therapy on a different continent, and thus felt safe enough to deal with it. Prior to that, there were clues to the suppressed memories in the form of bad dreams and bizarre thoughts.

I kept a dream journal while in therapy. I still find that talking about my dreams or recording them is useful, yet I have had people tell me "dreams are just gibberish and do not mean anything." These are often smart people who basically swear on a stack of scientific books that they are driven by logic (or well-educated Christians, who fail to see the hypocrisy and irony).

In short, I have been in situations where the truth was so unacceptable to other people that it created mental blocks in me. So, I feel very strongly that dismissing another person's reality is literally crazy-making.

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

#105

Post by MrTonyD »

FreedomToCreate wrote: post #103
MrTonyD wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard not to fall into the trap created by a society with "business values". Should it really be considered less successful to be someone who builds an energy-efficient building which may last for centuries? Should a simple handyman really be paid drastically less than someone with a PhD? I'm not against differentials in salary. But I do think that our present system is completely messed up.

If you look at it from the point if the economy, a handy man is a easily achievable job, meaning the number of handy man is large. Since there are so many of them, there is a large competition between them, lowering the value of there pay. What they do it specialized but not special. Some who differentiate themselves do make a lot more money. On the other hand a PHD is very difficult to achieve and a much smaller por…

You are arguing for supply and demand setting salaries. But there is plenty of evidence in the economic literature which finds that is not usually true in real world markets (in fact, it turn out to be really hard to find any market which obeys such a simplistic model. And even when it does, it is usually easy to find scenarios where that same market doesn't follow supply and demand.) So supply and demand is mostly, in practice, just a contributing factor - and should be recognized as such.

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

#106

Post by tunesmith »

aninhumer wrote: post #89
tunesmith wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

high-signal low-content... for example, if you say a term like "gun control" to a collection of people, and every person in the group has a clear idea of what it means, and yet the definition might be different for every person. So, the content of the term has low meaning overall, while as a signal it evokes a strong response.

So, I get what you're saying, but I don't think "signal" is a great term for that, because it comes from information theory, and there its definition more closely matches what you're calling "content". I'm not sure what you could call emotional impact to make a similarly pithy description though.

Yeah, that's a good point - I have heard "signal" used more in this context in social sciences, like "dog whistle" in politics. But it'd be nice to come up with something clearer and just as pithy.

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

#107

Post by alexbecker »

meowface wrote: post #73
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this may be true, hearing that you're useful is important. As someone that society has basically forgotten about, realizing that I won't be useful has recently crushed me. I would not presume to speak for schizophrenics. My quirks are bad, but not that. But the welfare of a person is greatly improved by the feeling that they'll be useful. Deluding yourself into thinking you're useful is much easier when there a…

Excellent point. Many schizophrenics have poor quality of life, but support from friends, family, and society and large can prevent it from degrading further, and even make it a lot better. Some people with schizophrenia can even be relatively functional, even without medication, if they have a good social structure. I could be wrong, but from what I've heard, with therapy and decent support, they can basically recog…

John Nash fairly famously refused medication (although this is not portrayed in the movie).

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

#108

Post by andrei_says_ »

jostylr wrote: post #88
dsfsdfd wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tentatively agree with you. Although I am a parent and my child will be going to school - I do feel that the rail road that takes you from childhood to productive adult under the tutelage of the state is fundamentally a coercive one. It indoctrinates children to accept authority unconditionally and sets them up to be good little employees when they grow older - accepting the authority of their superiors without que…

It is far easier for someone who has been free and living life with eyes wide open to understand and play the game if they choose than it is for someone who has lived a life under authority to suddenly have tremendous freedom. This is why many young adults flounder in their 20s. They have never been free and suddenly they are. With no direction and no restraint learned, this can be very dangerous. If you happen to li…

Exactly. The institution of school destroys the healthy relationship with intrinsic motivation, curiosity, self-discipline and relationships with others by creating an unhealthy environment and modeling highly pathological versions of the above as the norm.

While, ironically, labeling some children's inability to accept and tolerate such conditions as ("treatable!!") pathology.

A human child who grows knowing herself, knowing how to determine what's important to her, knowing how to meet her own goals, knowing her own value, and knowing how to gain support and resources to achieve what's important, is very difficult to control or "guide."

There are very few institutions which support gaining such knowledge, like democratic schools. Public schools do not.

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

#109

Post by meowface »

alexbecker wrote: post #107
meowface wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent point. Many schizophrenics have poor quality of life, but support from friends, family, and society and large can prevent it from degrading further, and even make it a lot better. Some people with schizophrenia can even be relatively functional, even without medication, if they have a good social structure. I could be wrong, but from what I've heard, with therapy and decent support, they can basically recog…

John Nash fairly famously refused medication (although this is not portrayed in the movie).

You're right. That makes the case even more interesting.

He claims he was able to eventually rationally reject all delusions and voices.

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