Merged Psychological conditions are illusory

[Safe-Keeper]

Jonesboy, can I ask you something?

I've been skimming this thread, and you've been making a whole lot of statements on the subject, but I see very little if anything in the way of actual evidence? I really don't think it could hurt if you told us a little about where you got these ideas from and what convinced you they were true.

Claims don't support themselves.

 

[Garrison]

These are weak techniques because they are still defined by the emotional puritanism that accompanies all medical and scientific responses to so-called PTSD.

So treatments that work are 'weak'? And I don't see a lot of emotional puritanism into recognizing the reality of the symptoms of PTSD and treating them. Please point to any evidence that the approach you are advocating results in anyhting other than years of pain and suffering.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

There is no such thing as a panic "attack". There is only panic. Why rationalize it?

Yes, these things are easily worked with in a positive, optimistic way, without seeing them as destructive, but liberating. The first step is to reject the pathology model of experience and instead see experiences as gateways. At the moment we are taught that bad experiences are destructive. So it's hard to see it any other way.
But by allowing it and encouraging it, there comes a transition point. We see such transition points in our every day life, in crying and laughing for example. Hyperventilation is another breath change that lets us get rid of junk. We must unlearn its pathologisation. I used to run workshops.

Jonesboy,
I am the wife of an army veteran. As you may know, domestic violence is a huge issue in the army, particularly for soldiers with untreated PTSD or other trauma related disorders. There was a big story several years ago where 4 soldiers at one army base killed their wives shortly after arriving home from war in something like a one month time span.
Is it your contention that the spouses and children of soldiers who are beaten, and their lives perhaps even threatened by the veteran as a result of that trauma, should not treat the soldier's behavior as destructive and should encourage this abusive behavior even if it leads to their own deaths?

 

[Dancing David]

So Jonesboy, where is the evidence that people with dyslexia are labelled 'patients'?

 

[Philosaur]

Jonesboy,
I am the wife of an army veteran. As you may know, domestic violence is a huge issue in the army, particularly for soldiers with untreated PTSD or other trauma related disorders. There was a big stories several years ago where 4 soldiers at one army base killed their wives shortly after arriving home from war in something like a one month time span.
Is it your contention that the spouses and children of soldiers who are beaten, and their lives perhaps even threatened, by the veteran as a result of that trauma, should not treat the soldier's behavior as destructive and should encourage this abusive behavior even if it leads to their own deaths?

No, of course not. Anything "bad" associated with PTSD is the result of our "emotional puritanism" and the soldiers' friends and family's unwillingness to support them on their natural course of healing.

Clearly, the dead family members were to blame for not accepting the soldiers' violent cries for help.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

No, of course not. Anything "bad" associated with PTSD is the result of our "emotional puritanism" and the soldiers' friends and family's unwillingness to support them on their natural course of healing.

Clearly, the dead family members were to blame for not accepting the soldiers' violent cries for help.

I really wonder if Jonesboy doesn't realized that symptoms of PTSD go far beyond things like laughing or crying excessively.

For instance, my husband suffered from PTSD. He did not become either emotionally or physically abusive, thank goodness, but he did become very nervous and paranoid. Loud noises would frightened him terribly, and to this day he feels very uncomfortable around loud noise. But more than anything else, he became very paranoid. He would interperet completely innocuous glances or statements by people as an act of hostility, and was becoming increasingly convinced that people close to him were "out to get him" in some way or another. He had a very close knit family and friend support structure that did not denigrate his experiences or emotions, but he still was convinced that everyone secretly hated him and were only pretending to be nice to him. This ultimately hit a climax when he accused a close family member of wanting to kill him - which of course was horrific to hear for the family member, who had never been anything but loving and supportive to my husband.
And of course, with someone less stable than my husband, such a situation could have proven very dangerous. Someone more mentally unbalanced may have acted on his feelings that people were out to get him (even kill him) and committed violence against the people he thought were after him.

Jonesboy, in what way is thinking the people who are most kind to you, most supportive of you, and most loving to you are actually trying to kill you a normal, healthy thing that should be encouraged? Do you really think such emotions in and of themselves are not harmful to the soldier? That he or she would be perfectly happy going around thinking no one really loved them and actually wished they were dead...that their mental distress is in fact only due to the fact that society imposes the belief upon such a soldier that it's not a good thing to think your loved ones secretly hate you and might want to kill you?

 

[Safe-Keeper]

I reject the pseudo-condition of PTSD as it is a natural process that has been represented and distorted by medical tradition and taboo.

Is the naturalistic fallacy all you've got? Bleeding to death from a deep cut is natural, too, isn't it?

 

[lomiller]

There are NO efforts to address "dyslexia" anywhere in the world.
There are efforts to address difficulties in reading.

You are trying to say that we are treating a cause of that difficulty. But it isn't some cause that is the problem, it's the dificulty.

Wrong again.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101220163059.htm

People with Dyslexia process written information in a different part of the brain then “normal” learners. Furthermore, their ability to somewhat overcome this imparemtn can be directly linked to development in the area of the brain dyslexics process written inforamtion rather than the area where normal learners process that same information.

 

[Garrison]

This seems to more of your infantile neorfreudian projection.

So...
What exactly is puritanical about desensitization?

I think you have shown that you are just wildly flailing at concepts you haven't even tried to understand.

The only puritanism I've seen here is Jonesboy's rejection of anything that doesn't fit his personal psychobabble.

 

[lomiller]

As with the Dyslexia thread, PTSD is condition with physiological effects that are now measurable.

http://iopscience.iop.org/1741-2552/7/1/016011/

Externally cross-validated, bootstrap-based analyses yielded >90% overall accuracy of classification. In addition, all but one of 18 patients who were not receiving medications for their disease were correctly classified. Altogether, these findings document robust differences in brain function between the PTSD and control groups that can be used for differential diagnosis and which possess the potential for assessing and monitoring disease progression and effects of therapy.

Even if its physiological effects were not measurable you are wrong to write of the overwhelming opinion that this is a real condition. Are you by chance a Scientologist who simply rejects modern Psychology out of hand?

 

[Craig4]

The people on the waiting list and the people being treated are both strongly affected by the belief that what they experience is an illness. By mistakenly disenfranchising their own experiences they can only hope for treatment, sedation, comforts and copings.

How many people have you encountered with PTSD symptoms? So you're suggesting that leaving the person with PTSD alone is going to reduce the symptoms associated with the condition? Where is the research that supports this claim?

Obviously if you're suggesting that the symptoms aren't a problem we need not be bothered with your claims any longer.

 

[Tracy Dalziel]

Far fewer than 10,000 years ago (as in only a few generations ago) it was commonly believed that congenitally deaf people who did not speak as well as everyone else must be stupid, because they didn't speak as well as everyone else. It is no accident that the "dumb" part of the expression "deaf and dumb" became a synonym for unintelligent. Many still hang on to that prejudice.

I guess that Tracy would dismiss that as being merely part of a continuum, and Jonesboy would attack methods of helping the deaf communicate more easily as "dis-empowering", but I wouldn't agree with that, either.

No I do not believe congenital deafness/dumbness to be part of a continuum as it is clearly an abnormal and debillitating pathological state. Having had a relative who was dumb and unable to take food by mouth (although this wasn't congenital, it was the result of several strokes precipitated by a bout of rheumatic fever she suffered in childhood) and another who was born mentally handicapped because his mother had to give up warfarin during her pregnancy and refused a termination. I find your comparison frankly offensive.

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

No I do not believe congenital deafness/dumbness to be part of a continuum as it is clearly an abnormal and debillitating pathological state. Having had a relative who was dumb and unable to take food by mouth (although this wasn't congenital, it was the result of several strokes precipitated by a bout of rheumatic fever she suffered in childhood) and another who was born mentally handicapped because his mother had to give up warfarin during her pregnancy and refused a termination. I find your comparison frankly offensive.

Since it wasn't congenital, it doesn't count (despite it being a terrible thing to go through), and you aren't allowed to play the "it's offensive" card.

 

[quadraginta]

No I do not believe congenital deafness/dumbness to be part of a continuum as it is clearly an abnormal and debillitating pathological state. Having had a relative who was dumb and unable to take food by mouth (although this wasn't congenital, it was the result of several strokes precipitated by a bout of rheumatic fever she suffered in childhood) and another who was born mentally handicapped because his mother had to give up warfarin during her pregnancy and refused a termination. I find your comparison frankly offensive.

That's probably because the statements of yours I am comparing it to are offensive.

That was the point. Do you know what that 'whoosh' sound was?

 

[Drachasor]

No I do not believe congenital deafness/dumbness to be part of a continuum as it is clearly an abnormal and debillitating pathological state. Having had a relative who was dumb and unable to take food by mouth (although this wasn't congenital, it was the result of several strokes precipitated by a bout of rheumatic fever she suffered in childhood) and another who was born mentally handicapped because his mother had to give up warfarin during her pregnancy and refused a termination. I find your comparison frankly offensive.

And your dismissal of actual problems other people have as not really existing isn't offensive?* The comparison is dead-on.

*As well as completely lacking in evidential support.

 

[Halfcentaur]

There is no such thing as a panic "attack". There is only panic. Why rationalize it?

Yes, these things are easily worked with in a positive, optimistic way, without seeing them as destructive, but liberating. The first step is to reject the pathology model of experience and instead see experiences as gateways. At the moment we are taught that bad experiences are destructive. So it's hard to see it any other way.
But by allowing it and encouraging it, there comes a transition point. We see such transition points in our every day life, in crying and laughing for example. Hyperventilation is another breath change that lets us get rid of junk. We must unlearn its pathologisation. I used to run workshops.

You truly have no idea what you're talking about. I have panic attacks. You're just reducing this to a semantic debate it seems. When I am sitting in a comfortable mood and suddenly a chemical reaction in my brain without any external stimuli or trigger takes place that leaves me unable to breath with a heart rate that is too fast to focus on while experiencing the most potent and concentrated terror I could ever imagine before losing consciousness, this is not simply panic. Simple panic does not have a person debating whether or not to call 911 for fear one is dying.

You have a vendetta against rational thought that I would be interested in learning the origins of, your motivation so far seems to be simply a sense of superiority.

 

[foxholeatheist]

Jonesboy...

Ah, screw it.

Schrodinger's Cat, way to be supportive and understanding of hubby. My wife understands when I sit in the car when she goes to Wal*Mart. For some strange reason that joint gets my hackles up. I think it's the crowds. She understands and that's a huge benefit. You probably already know but you're a huge help.

ApolloGnomon, that's a great example why we have to break the stigma of seeking treatment. I was finally goaded into going and it's a huge help. Little things man. One night I saw a red light camera go off and I was right back there in the HUMVEE in Baghdad driving through the kill zone getting ready to hop out and do my 5s and 25s and all. I had to literally convince myself that I was not.
Now I'm in a clinic with a bunch of cherry medics and techs that have no idea what it's like. I miss Fort Hood in that respect, everyone around knew exactly what you were talking about.

I have a great PL who was in the same AO I was and we get together and talk sometimes and he got me to go see BMD. I'm glad I did.

 

[petra10]

You must be one of the more senior members of the forum, then. The diagnosis and the term have been around since before the end of the nineteenth century.

Congratulations on dealing with the challenge so well, and extra kudos for so many birthdays.

Oh thanks, I'm not that old I went to a catholic school in the west of Scotland and it wasn't allowed.

To me it means I get letters and numbers jumbled up.Simple little words are the worse. When I spell a word it looks fine to me but its spelt wrong or it looks wrong to me but its spelt right.
I also get my left and right wrong all the time but although I am right handed I can also use my left hand just as well for a lot of things.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

My daughter is far from a willing victim - she would love to be able to read as easily and fluently as other people. There is nothing ordinary about her reading difficulties, except in the sense that ~15% of the human race has similar problems. She can read large words easily, once she has learnt them, as they form a unique pattern. The words she has problems with are generally short words such as "this", "that", "then", "them" etc. because they all start with the same two letters and are the same length. Their patterns are similar.

This form of dyslexia is the opposite of most ADHD-related dyslexia. In my son's case he's baffled by long words, because his brain is attempting to short-cut and shove every word into a pattern or template rather than reading individual letters. So he assumes a word says something other than what it really says.

Most recent example: Last night he made a reference to my wife's "parental tablets."

She's taking prenatal vitamins.

 

[jj]

Most recent example: Last night he made a reference to my wife's "parental tablets."

She's taking prenatal vitamins.

I'm not sure that's dyslexia. That's summoning up something with very similar meaning.