On Sat, Jun 16, 2001 at 10:02:55PM -0400, Isaiah Weiner wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 15, 2001 at 05:40:06PM -0400, Paul M Foster wrote:
> > Eccentricity != productivity. Swearing != "keeping the faith". I have no
> > problem with eccentrics (_obviously_ we have some). Some people would
> > call me one. What I have a problem with is conduct that isn't civil.
> > Swearing is not necessarily an un_sub_bing offense on the SLUG list,
> > unless it's constant and gratuituous, and the person is warned and does
> > not comply.
> >
> > Given our recent successes as a LUG, I'd have to argue that our "civil"
> > conduct on the SLUG list has not made us any less productive.
>
> Compared to who? We started LinuxExpo ;)
>
No comparison necessary. You imply that containing uncivil conduct from
"eccentrics" quells the productivity of a LUG. We contain such conduct
on the SLUG list, yet we've had tremendous successes recently in two
major shows down here (soon to be a third).
>
> > Baruther! You obviously don't know the story of how psychs come up with
> > stuff for the DSM. It's been likened to the process of ordering take-out.
> > The psychs demonstrably cannot ascertain psychosis, explain why it
> > happens, nor cure it. About the only thing they can do is produce it.
> > According to the "regular" dictionary, "psychotic" is _not_ a medical
> > term. And were it a medical term, this would imply that it has some
> > physical cause, which has not been proven, nor will it ever be, except in
> > a vanishingly small percentage of cases.
>
> I'm really not sure where you heard that; sounds like an urban legend
> to me. Please don't abbreviate psychiatrists; "psychs" can be used for
> psychologists and psychiatrists, two very different fields.
>
They study the same basic information, and one is an MD (who obviously
studies more medical stuff) while the other is not. I have equal
contempt for both.
Read the minutes of the APA's meetings, if you don't believe what I say
about their methods of choosing what goes in the DSM. But here's
something else to think about. Psychs make money when people have mental
difficulties. So it's in their best interests to have as many and as
minor difficulties turned in the "syndromes" or "diseases" as possible.
Voila the DSM. Once there, it can be encoded with the proper medical
industry code, put on insurance forms, and "treated". And don't tell me
these people aren't putting minor ailments into the DSM. The DSM has
mushroomed in recent years from mental "disabilities" that before were
simply facts of life. And don't tell me these people are doing what they
do for the "good of mankind". There is more fraud, abuse and malpractice
in the psychiatric field than any other healing art (and I only
reluctantly use the term "healing art", because that's the way insurance
companies look at it).
> Psychiatry does frequently prescribe medication to victims of well
> known, well established, well proven physical ailments involving the
> chemistry of the brain. You must've been under a rock for the last 50
> years to not understand that.
>
Okay, so Joanne has a "chemical imbalance" (the latest buzzword of the
psych industry). Did they test the actual chemicals first to determine
that? And are they completely certain that they know what the right
"balance" is? And did they check her diet first? And once they
determined her "chemical imbalance", what did they do? Let's see. Paxil.
Wellbutrin. Et al. Oh that's right. Joanne just went through a divorce
and is fighting for the custody of her children. Or, Joanne just lost
her job. Or Joanne has been tense about sex ever since she was raped at
19.
Spare me. Even if such a "chemical imbalance" exists, psychs are loath
to discern the true reasons for it. Actually, "incapable" and
"unwilling" are the more proper terms. And their treatment is
symptom-based, not cause-based. And often, their treatments are worse
than the "disease". Witness Ritalin, a favorite of the psychs. It's a
powerful stimulant, given primarily to children. Unfortunately, it's
addictive, and causes children to become violent and antisocial with
some regularity. You'll find that most of the shooting incidents at
schools in this country are perpetrated by children on psychiatric
drugs, primarily Ritalin.
And BTW, the psych industry has been given more money than God and more
opportunities to figure out what makes people tick than any other field.
With all that time and money, they should know precisely what causes
what, and precisely how to "cure" (not _treat_) it. And yet their
treatments say volumes about the fact that they really haven't a clue.
Moreover, here is a field where "expert witnesses" are a dime a dozen,
each hired (often in the same case) to testify as to the sanity or
insanity of perpetrators. When two seemingly respectable members of the
same field can look at the same individual and come to diametrically
opposed conclusions as to his mental state, you're not talking about
science. A ballistics expert can say without hesitation whether a bullet
came from a given gun. Hire twenty other ballistics experts, and they'll
all come to the same conclusion.
> MOST (where most is the largest group in a group of groups)
> descriptions in the DSM volumes diagram extreme cases, this is true; it's
> up to the interpretation of the physician (remember, psychiatrists are
> medical doctors, too, which last I checked, was a field of science) to
> determine it's relation to the patient. We're not machines, nearly
> everybody requires slightly different treatments.
>
Putting a field in the category of "science" does not necessarily make
it a science. Psychiatry and psychology are good examples.
> FWIW, dict.org, accessing several "regular" dictionaries, disagrees
> with you.
>
> psychotic
> adj : (medicine) suffering from psychosis
>
> ^^^
> HEY, how 'bout that. Funny, that is.
>
> n : a person afflicted with psychosis [syn: psychotic person,
> psycho]
>
And the _Random House College Dictionary_ disagrees with dict.org.
Interesting, too, that the word has a history long before the advent of
modern psychology and psychiatry. I would say that since some
dictionaries now list it as a medical word, it's been co-opted as an
excuse for the psychs to gain authority over its discovery and
treatment.
Paul
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