1 in 5 Young Adults Have Personality Disorder, Study Finds

[Smackety]

And of course, Psychology in general invites this type of criticism in that practitioners tend to use what works and saves lives, even if the mechanism at work is not yet understood. The test is "Does it work?" not "Why does it work?" when you are out in the field.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

BN you have to remember where you are. At JREF a lot of people have what I call a "test tube" mentality, ie they don't even consider believing anything if it hasn't been dissected to death via multiple studies (all must be online of course) blah etc. Not a bad mindset per se, but taken too far it's very myopic, and at times I suspect used as some sort of social identity boost - which is OK, we all have those, but yeesh - the idea of questioning some of these things is like questioning if water is wet.

Hey yeah - how do you know water is wet? Do you have a study that proves it?? Did peers sign off on this?? I don't buy it.

Again I think much of what you have stated here could easily be grasped by the average 12 yr old - the idea of being "skeptical" over such simple truths I find pretty curious too, but to each their own I guess.

Thanks. It's nice to know someone else feels that way.

******

Thank you for providing me again with this life-enhancing amusement, Iconoclast08. If you could bottle it, you could sell it as a self-help cure. ... Would even you not be tempted to sell woo if you could get enough money for it? ... But then, think of what the papers would say if the scandal got out!: How would you translate, "Vehement anti-Wooist goes woo woo!" into language the public would understand.

Only joking.

Many people on this forum who question half-baked ideas and armchair conjecture get all sorts of "you big meanie!" type responses launched at them, and
I'm no exception. You may have your area of expertise, but that does not immunize you from credulity and/or falling for dubious claims.

This is almost as amusing as ... no, I won't go there. Let's just say you're not the first big meany here who's accused me of calling people on their meanness when I was in fact making constructive suggestions or having a laugh. Seriously though, I was hardly accusing you of being mean. What your scathing scornfulness does do, however, is turns people off to any valid message you might have - good psychology will tell you that; and when you come across as unreasonably extreme, you lose credibility. It would be in your own interests to at least be more cautious about your condemnations.

Or you could carry on amusing me, of course.

Case in point: You suggest the authors are guilty of "armchair conjecture". Um, these are actually practising therapists. They practise what they preach, and they still remain confident in it. Of course, that in itself doesn't mean it's any good; but you don't have enough knowledge about them to suggest they're guilty of mere "armchair conjecture".

I seriously suggest you have a think about what you're trying to achieve here. Are you just trying to trample the opposition, or do you genuinely want to be persuasive? If you do, then I suggest you call on your knowledge of psychology to help you go about it better. Here's an illustration of why you need to do this:

I, I, me, me, I, I, I. Anecdotal.

Yes, I suppose it is possible that I just happened to speak to the only people in the world who are unhappy with therapy, and everything else is going on wonderfully. A piece of advice for future reference: You look better if you're not so hasty to cry "Anecdotal"! One good reason is that you didn't even stop to ponder on whether I was telling the story to prove that therapy is bad, or whether I was simply telling it to you to explain my personal intolerance of over-dismissiveness of self-help books ... or whether I might have another, far more sinister motive.

And you either didn't fully consider or understand my last post concerning the self-help issue. What I said is that the reason for "self-help" effectiveness is category lumping ...

Indeed. Note that I didn't actually accuse you of dismissing all self-help books. If you read what I said again, you might notice that. However, your dismissiveness does seem extreme, so while you may not go to the polar extreme of claiming all self-help is bad, you don't seem far off, as illustrated by your:

These more legitimate references may be skewing results in the favor of self-help... that is, a few diamonds
in the self-help dunghill may be skewing the "self-help" results positively.

Now think about what you just said. You who pride yourself on being the "clear-thinking" one here. Could "a few" diamonds amid a "dung-hill" really be responsible for all this?:

Although the pace seems to have slackened in recent years, self-help books are a staple of the American diet.* Judging from the promotion blurbs on back covers, you can: lose weight, overcome co-dependence, quit drinking or using drugs, fight off fear, and ward off anxiety.* If the sales figures are any indication, the programs must be phenomenally successful.* But what does the research say?

Previous reviews on this website have found that self-help is generally as effective as professionally guided treatment when it comes to depression, anxiety–even
alcohol and drug problems.* Recently, researcher Scogin (2003) reviewed the growing literature in this area and found much the same.* Self help books,
manuals, tapes, computer programs, and videotapes have proven effective for depression, anxiety, alcohol abuse, smoking cessation, and child and family
problems "for less intensive cases and more motivated clients."* In the case of alcohol problems, bibliotherapy–reading that is–was not found to be any more effective when it was augmented with consultation with a professional!

Bottom line?* Self-help should perhaps be viewed as the best, "first line" of care for most people.* While this may be surprising to some, research summarized by the founders at ISTC shows that the single largest contributor to change in treatment is the client–responsible for between 40-87% of the variance in
treatment outcome.
Scogin, F.R. (2003).* The status of self-help adminsitered treatments.* Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59(3).

Thus, you prove by yourself that you have no grounds for your accusation:

This was a more nuanced point of mine that you tried to turn into a straw man. Please refrain from turning this into some puerile "ideology" name-calling game.

Please try to refrain from making such unfounded accusations in the future.

There truly is a lot of garbage out there masquerading as "self-help" that is professionally irresponsible whether you choose to realize it or not.

Another fault in your position is that even while you accuse me of things I'm not doing by claiming I'm misrepresenting you as having a more extreme position than you have, you misrepresent me by accusing me of having an extreme position I don't hold. Ah, the delicious irony.

I'm by no means claiming that all self-help is good. I said myself in my last post that the quality of self-help books is enormously variable. Perhaps you didn't consider everything I said before drawing your conclusions. :-7

If this is truly what you got out of what I wrote, then you are truly having a reading comprehension difficulty with my posts. Either that or you are deliberately
erecting straw-men because you are bereft of a good argument. I'm not sure which.

Hey, I suggest you go back and look at your posts again. Could the JREF forum have been playing wild and dastardly tricks on you? Could you in fact have put together a down-to-earth and informative analysis of what was wrong with those things I linked to, giving specific examples of things they said that were dubious and explaining why; and the JREF forum, in a fit of mischievous fervour, altered your posts so in fact there was very little to no substance there about the actual reasons you objected to the articles, and just wild unsupported accusation about them being "armchair conjecture" and "woo", etc.? What a terrible thing this forum must be! Or is it perhaps your posts that are at fault, because you've done exactly what I'm telling you you've done? Again, if you want to be taken seriously, I suggest you use less of the invective and more substance in your argument to back up your case.

erecting straw-men because you are bereft of a good argument.

Oh again, the merriment-making irony! Please give me more substance to work with.

What I conveyed (if you understood my posts) was that pawning off armchair conjecture with no peer-review or direct evidence in its favor under the aegis
of professionalism was irresponsible. I never said that it was "dangerous" to publicize common sense, but rather, what you see as "common sense" based
on dubious references is not quality evidentiary support. Rather, peer-review, the scientific method, theoretical parsimony, and double-blind studies pitting
different approaches against each other should be the emphasis and not gut feelings, appeals to emotion, and superficial appeals to "common sense" ("it
feels right...it's obvious...it's common sense", etc.)

So you are in effect saying exactly what I said you were suggesting - that it was irresponsible of me to link to what I'd linked to, because one would need to have peer-reviews and double-blind studies before it could ever be safe to say something like (as per my post paraphrasing what the articles said):

Some psychologists think everyone has basic emotional needs that have to be met to a certain extent, at least sometimes in people's lives, for us to be
mentally healthy, claiming that anyone who has them all met is a lot less likely to get mentally ill. They say the needs include:

• Security: The feeling that we have a safe territory around us, so we can live our lives without fear as far as possible, and enjoy privacy whenever we
need to.
• Control: We need to feel as if we're in control of our lives and that we're free to make our own decisions about what we do in them, at least to some extent. They say the more interests and activities we're involved in, the more we can maintain that sense of control, because then, if someone loses control
of one part of their lives, for instance if they lose a job, they'll at least know they can determine what they do in other parts of their lives.
• Attention: They say we need to receive some from others, at least sometimes; and that we also need to give it.
• Emotional connection to others: That can include friendship or emotional intimacy. They say it means we ought to have at least one person who will understand us, who we can share our hopes, dreams and ideas with. They say for some people, talking to a pet can fulfil their need for emotional connection, but many
people need more than that.
• Connection to the wider community: They say we need to feel as if we're part of something bigger than ourselves. That could include working for a cause or charity, or being part of a team - anything that takes our focus off ourselves, and gives us a sense of belonging and purpose in life.
• Paying attention to the mind-body connection: They say we can succumb to mental illness more easily if we don't take care to eat healthily and exercise, and if we don't sleep enough.
• A sense of meaning, goals in life and purpose: They say we need to be physically or mentally challenged a bit, by having problems to solve. They say if we don't occupy our imaginations with things that stimulate them and challenge them to invent creative solutions to things, they can be under-used, and
can focus on things that are unhealthy and create problems for us, like magnifying little concerns out of all proportion, till we see them as major problems.
On the other hand, if we use our imagination in creative ways, focusing it outward on something interesting rather than on ourselves, we can feel satisfaction when it manages to find solutions to the challenges we've set it.
• A sense of status: They say we need to feel we have some importance in life or in the community, not necessarily a position of importance to a whole community;
it could be status as a mother or father. But they say we need to feel that at least someone values us.
• They say we need to have a sense of competence or achievement: That'll make sure we don't suffer from low self-esteem. They say we can achieve this by investigating and learning new things and improving the skills we already have. That will increase our sense of purpose in life, and make us more confident
that we're reasonably talented so we can feel good about ourselves.

It may well be that lots and lots of people's problems stem from the fact that they aren't getting a lot of those needs met; and rather than being helped or inspired to get them met, they're being put on medication, so their real problems don't go away. I know of far too many people who are very unhappy
because instead of getting help, they were just offered medication. And it's even worse when it happens to children.

Yes, what a dreadfully irresponsible thing to say!

But you have no idea whatsoever as to how much these ideas have in fact been subjected to peer-review and double-blind study - much to the probable indignation of people who view such things as just common sense. Frankly, your extreme haste in condemning these things just seems irrational, especially given your virtual failure to be specific about exactly what it is you find objectionable, in terms of what the authors actually said that you think might harm people.

Moreover, the amount of heat in your protests suggests that you're for some reason under the impression that I linked to those things because Kaylee said she needed therapy and wanted help. If she had, believe me, I'd have linked to something rather more substantial. But in fact she merely said that what I said tended to give her "food for thought", and she wondered what my source for that post was, because she wanted to read more. Not a hint at needing help herself.

The authors' claims go well beyond this according to that laughable REM-emotion blurb you posted and what they say on the Givens website, so you can cut
the minimization and LOL'ing at false targets of your own construction.

Again, if you want me to take you more seriously, be specific about exactly what it is they say that bothers you so much that you thought it was irresponsible of me to link to it. And bearing in mind I linked to single pages, any links you followed from there that took you onto different topics are not my responsibility. I am, however, prepared to bear what you say about them in mind, if you are prepared to be specific about exactly what it is they say that you find so objectionable, and why.

Same straw man, different angle. You know the claims go beyond this. Stop making cartoon characterizations of my position because you can't respond appropriately.

Can't respond appropriately. Oh, the irony again! Does responding appropriately mean agree with you? You say this, and yet you still refuse to do what I was asking you to do and be specific about exactly what they say that you find so objectionable and why! Why can't you do this?

Based on your summary and the websites, it sounds like re-heated old ideas mixed with humanistic flair and a healthy dose of nonsense, which I stated before.
Of course there could be a smattering of micro-truths in the steaming pile of donkey dung. What I was going after were the half-baked ideas mixed with
the old ideas and mini-truths such as the silly REM-emotion business and other silly stuff mentioned on the website. But since you've misunderstood my
posts, there may be a chance that you've equally misunderstood and miscommunicated their book content.

Frankly, your response just verges on hysteria. To dismiss a 200-or-more-page book as "donkey dung", based on an extremely brief summary of some of the things in it, makes it rather obvious you do not have an open mind. You completely disregard what I've said about the hype on the website and the book being much more down-to-earth. You still refuse to be specific about exactly what it is you're objecting to, instead preferring to just heap invective on the book and the website, when you haven't even read the book! Since you seem to be stuck in a virtually black-and-white mind-set where you are extremely hasty to vehemently condemn anything you're suspicious of, there probably isn't really any point in talking to you much more, since you probably won't budge an inch from your position, even to concede to my requests that you explain your position further.

Here we go The ultimate "yo mama!" response. Those darned ideological questioners and skeptics of armchair conjecture!

It's interesting how you respond to criticism of your position not by denying it, or taking steps to clarify why the accusation isn't true, but by simply making an unconstructive accusation in response.

And you again dismiss as "armchair conjecture" the work of practising therapists, people who've been therapists for years.

One can certainly write a more simplified book for the layperson based on direct evidentiary support somewhere in the research literature. But where are
those articles containing evidence backing their souped-up claims (NOT the simple diamonds in the dunghill) directly? There's the rub. Don't make this
an all-or-nothing.

You're the one with the "all or nothing" approach. Because there are certain things on that website you don't like, you dismiss the whole lot as "donkey dung". Because you personally haven't been given an extensive list of references to prove what the books say has been well-researched, you dismiss almost everything in them as worthless.

Nice deflection. The blurb you typed out was loaded with potential rival alternative explanations. You insinuate that I am an ideologue while you won't
so much as acknowledge the glaring problems you wrote about from the book? You'll just claim that ah, the critical thinking about research is outdated?

And no, the fundamentals of research methodology (i.e., internal and external validity and the threats posed to them, reliability, replication, parsimony,
etc.) haven't changed that radically in the past decade. Should I start relying on anecdotal stories instead? Are those superior to critical thinking and the scientific method?

"Glaring problems"?? This again from someone who hasn't actually read the book!

And you link to books purporting to be much more valid solid self-help books, and then when I ponder as to whether the information in them could be outdated, you say, "the critical thinking about research is outdated"? What? Are you suggesting that people might have bought those books thinking they were self-help books, only to discover they're just lengthy technical treatises on the research methods and findings of several years? Or perhaps you never intended to suggest they were self-help books. Perhaps you'll have to remind me.

And what's with this straw man about the self-help books I prefer merely being full of anecdotes? You say this even after I give you an idea of what's in them and you get scathing about the non-anecdotal stuff in there.

Oh, this is definitely justified as woo-ridden... I don't regret that comment one bit. Take a serious look at that REM nonsense you posted and the claims made on that website after you've read the outdated books on critical thinking about research.

Again, you refuse to be specific about exactly what it is you don't like about what they say. Again, you make a hasty scornful condemnation without actually having read enough of the stuff to make a judgment.

Ok... now we're getting somewhere. You're claiming the websites are just not measuring up to the books. If that's the case, and you truly are not accurately
representing what you typed out from the books... and they DO contain direct evidentiary support for their ideas, which you have not provided despite my
requests, then I will check out those books and prepare to undo my ideology and see the LIGHT can-I-get-a-hallelujah!!!

I'm only saying about the Human Givens website what I have said from the beginning - that it's full of hype. I said that from the very first time I linked to it. And I could quote all the references the books give for their findings, but again, I would probably be severely warned for breach of copyright, since there are so many of them. :-7

I have said about the books that a lot of the stuff in them is old tried-and-tested material. In your mind, old well-researched material means "repackaged and re-heated" and thus worthless, while new material means "laughable donkey dung". I'm not sure what it would take to encourage you to make a genuine resolve to read the books.

Both. Mainly the unresearched highfalutin claims (the highly irresponsible part). So you did get the gist. You straw-manned me, then.

I have not said anything whatsoever that would indicate that any part of that book is "highly irresponsible". You have not given any indication whatsoever that you have any grounds to assert that anything they say is "highly irresponsible". Again, your posts are just full of invective, with little substance.

You may well have a very good reason for being so sceptical. But your over-hasty and over-dismissive scorn, along with your lack of explanation as to exactly what it is you object to, doesn't do your case any good. I suggest you change your approach.

 

[Iconoclast08]

Hey yeah - how do you know water is wet? Do you have a study that proves it?? Did peers sign off on this?? I don't buy it.

Again I think much of what you have stated here could easily be grasped by the average 12 yr old - the idea of being "skeptical" over such simple truths I find pretty curious too, but to each their own I guess.

Wait, so a purported causal link between negative emotionality and REM sleep needed to discharge that negativity, as put forth by that vapid blurb posted by BN, is as obvious as "water is wet"? Average 12-year olds grasp that? Ah, wait... we should instead spend time questioning the value of the reasonable questioning of such "obvious" claims found in research methodology books because those books might be "outdated". Please.

This is truly going nowhere and is devolving into ad hominem "LOL'ing" childishness and denigrating misrepresentation of my message.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

How dare we crucify the messiah!

You have a message? Then I suggest you look into all the double-blind studies on methods of persuasion you can find, and research how to put your message across more convincingly.

Are you "straw-manning", or did you seriously not understand that bigred was referring to the stuff in my post about basic emotional needs?

And you condemn that stuff about REM sleep, after first almightily blowing it out of proportion from my original incidental mention of it to a great and significant part of what I said, without even doing a scrap of investigation into whether it has any validity. What about that research it describes where depressed people were woken up when they started having REM sleep and found they weren't so depressed in the morning. Why have you not been able to debunk that? It's well-known research. Why do your posts simply consist of invective, with no substance to back up your claims?

 

[Dancing David]

I sincerely wonder if it every dawned on the psychiatric community, who seem to think a good percentage of us are "ill," that it is perhaps their ignorance of genetics that is the real problem. The human family is as diverse as the stars, for good reason. It's called SURVIVAL.[/B]

First off, please do not condemn a study that you have not read, although it user looks specious and certainly don't condemn a whole profession for one mistaken individual.

the article itself in not available on-line. So it is hard to judge what they actually said and wrote.

If you include substance abuse in the definition of who is being classified then the twenty percent figure sounds more reasonable.

BUT

Personality disorders are a huge problem in the DSM categorization in general and in the psychiatric community at large.

Everyone of the personality disorders has a RULE OUT for 'mental illness', so not only are they poorly defined and poorly categorized, they are totally and completely overused by psychiatrists. take the typical 'borderline personality disorder', they will almost ALWAYs have PTSD and co-occurrent bipolar/depression/anxiety disorders. therefore they should not be given the label of personality disorder on Axis II because they have a major Axis I disorder which is an automatic ruleout for Axis II.

They vary for each of the disorders but are very disregarded by psychiatrists because they are an easy way to classify behaviors.

So, I also imagine that they strech the 'impairment' of the individuals in the diagnosis of the PD, in that I doubt many (if any) of the people have lost jobs, housing or relationships due to these behaviors.

So take this news story with a grain salt, or a shaker full.

 

[Dancing David]

And from an article called The Causes of Schizophrenia:



Your position would seem to be that notwithstanding the multi-factorial causes of the exacerbation of such conditions, the only solution is medication, rather than also protecting yourself from things in the environment that might worsen your symptoms - things you could get advice about from a good self-help book.

Sorry BN, you are WAY out of line here. A good self help book is not going to do anything for schizophrenia. I was a practioner of the biopschosocial model for many years.

A self help book may help a person living with schizophrenia to learn coping skills for the symptoms of schizophrenia but it is not going to prevent schizophrenia at all. If reducing stress reduces symptoms, that may be effective as well.
But UNTREATED schizophrenia (no medicine) will lead to misery and suicide (16%). out of the two hundred people I worked with living with schizophrenia, only one was able to cope with their symptoms without medicine, and they tended to schizoaffective with hypomania.

I will say no more unless I become very rude and aggressive.

Fred Freese disagrees with you as well. Maybe not Donald Fischer.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

You seem to have read way too much into what I said. If only you'd read just a little further down the page. I was saying exactly what you've said about how a self-help book can help with peripheral symptoms. I wasn't suggesting people could get over or prevent schizophrenia itself by using a self-help book. I was saying that self-help strategies can alleviate some of the problems schizophrenics have like stress, just as they can alleviate stress in anyone else.

Read the next post I wrote where I elaborate on what I meant: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4250091&postcount=50

It goes into detail about what types of schizophrenia symptoms might be alleviated with non-medical interventions, and research to find out more about what works and how effective it is.

 

[technoextreme]

BN you have to remember where you are. At JREF a lot of people have what I call a "test tube" mentality, ie they don't even consider believing anything if it hasn't been dissected to death via multiple studies (all must be online of course) blah etc. Not a bad mindset per se, but taken too far it's very myopic, and at times I suspect used as some sort of social identity boost - which is OK, we all have those, but yeesh - the idea of questioning some of these things is like questioning if water is wet.

Hey yeah - how do you know water is wet? Do you have a study that proves it?? Did peers sign off on this?? I don't buy it.

Again I think much of what you have stated here could easily be grasped by the average 12 yr old - the idea of being "skeptical" over such simple truths I find pretty curious too, but to each their own I guess.

That's because even if I were to use your dumb dumb simple anecdotes I still would not agree with you.

Happily, I think (hope) most are wise enough to know that if they simply tackle things one step at a time and work hard vs reaching for some idiotic quack dishing out happy pills or labelling them with yet another blah-blah "syndrome" and reading things into their psyche that aren't even there, they will be fine.

Hope. How dumb. There is a reason why logic and facts tend to win out and in this case you hope probably should shatter like a window pane being hit with a hammer.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080407195349.htm
Go logic. Go logic.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

More about what self-help can do for people with schizophrenia

OK, here's more about what a self-help book could help with in schizophrenia. They can help relatives cope better, for one thing, and can give advice about building social skills and other things like that, the kinds of things outlined here, for example: Recovery - what you can do to help. And with what to do when a schizophrenic relative's having hallucinations. For example, see: Hallucinations.

In their lucid moments, people with schizophrenia can read stuff like that themselves, to advise their relatives on how to treat them when their symptoms come on. In fact, when I worked on the help-line for people with anxiety disorders, one paranoid schizophrenic told me that what really stressed him was when people didn't listen to him but assumed they knew best, and took decisions out of his hands so he felt powerless to control things, especially people in the psychiatric hospital he tended to get sent to. It would make him lose his temper, so it would confirm what they thought of him, so they'd do it some more. It wouldn't surprise me if this kind of problem is common. Self-help books can increase understanding of such conditions and advise on how to handle them better, including giving people with schizophrenia ideas on how to get their needs across better if they can.

In fact, I even know of a self-help book written primarily to help carers of people with schizophrenia persuade them to take their medication better: I Am Not Sick I Don't Need Help by Xavier Amador.

 

[Kopji]

It isn't going to help your cause to take a position at the extreme polar opposite of that of the videos and other things said here.

I'm not as clear about what my 'cause' is. Mental illness runs in my family so I have a personal interest in understanding it better. This does not make me an expert, but does make me rather skeptical about these kind of threads being able to provide more light than heat.

The brain isn't the kind of organ where once it's developed, it won't change unless it's damaged by something pathological. The chemical balance in the brain alters all the time, and a chemical balance altered by stress, for example, could be classified as damage, but won't necessarily need a drug to fix it.

Nothing I disagree with there. Drugs are not always bad, and non drug solutions are not always bad.

For one thing, to suggest that anyone claiming drugs could cause brain damage is talking "woo" is just not scientific, as illustrated by the article.

The 'woo' part is the worldwide conspiracy, and the prevalent notion that without even understanding how the brain works in a biological sense, we have definitive solutions.

I'm just saying that drug damage measurable by an MRI would be easily proved or disproved by scientific research, not mere anecdotes. When we don't have science behind us, the anecdotes seem to suffice all too often.

Your position would seem to be that notwithstanding the multi-factorial causes of the exacerbation of such conditions, the only solution is medication, rather than also protecting yourself from things in the environment that might worsen your symptoms - things you could get advice about from a good self-help book.

Humm. No. But yes, the notion that a schizophrenic is going to cure themselves by reading a self help book makes me doubt the larger strategy that recommends it.

**********************

I have spent some time looking into your 'Human Givens Institute'. They don't seem like what I would consider 'the bad guys'. They have a 'cult-like' flavor in their writings that I find distasteful, but I readily admit I have a bias that sometimes makes me oversensitive and distrustful.

From their charter:

Words that paralyse thought

A technique used by political managers or administrative 'spinners' to give the appearance of action is that, whenever they want to impose another untried recipe for doing something, they dress it up with abstract nouns — words with no substance that make people feel good or certain about what is being said.
For example, 'evil', 'truth', 'freedom', 'wealth', 'change', 'choice', 'respect', 'potential', 'innovations', 'modernisation', 'spiritual', 'values', 'principles', 'progress', 'success', 'quality', 'enterprise', 'ethics', 'standards', 'democracy', 'terror', 'aspirations', 'education', 'equality', etc.

These words are called nominalisations by linguists. They actively muddle clear communication because, by pretending to refer to something concrete, the people using them create a feeling in the listener that something meaningful is being said when it isn't.

http://www.hgi.org.uk/charter/charter-pg7.htm

This seems like a version of 'poisoning the well'. In an attempt to promote a new idea, old words must be eliminated or given new meaning. While clarity of thought is advocated, they take many many pages to elaborate their view. I call this 'cult-like'.

I do not consider Scientology 'one of the good guys', but I do apologize for earlier using a rather broad brush. Matteo was right to correct me. My objection to them is mostly that they are predatory, not that everything they teach is wrong.

The Human Givens people at least seem to be honestly naive about their teaching's similarity to sci. I do encourage that they become more aware.
http://mindsalot.wordpress.com/2007/02/08/scientology/

 

[Dancing David]

You seem to have read way too much into what I said. If only you'd read just a little further down the page. I was saying exactly what you've said about how a self-help book can help with peripheral symptoms. I wasn't suggesting people could get over or prevent schizophrenia itself by using a self-help book. I was saying that self-help strategies can alleviate some of the problems schizophrenics have like stress, just as they can alleviate stress in anyone else.

Read the next post I wrote where I elaborate on what I meant: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4250091&postcount=50

It goes into detail about what types of schizophrenia symptoms might be alleviated with non-medical interventions, and research to find out more about what works and how effective it is.

Sorry BN, I still see you stating what I believe to be errors, but I will not derail the thread further. Nor shall I bash what I consider to be your errors. I would just recommend that you stop over generalizing. You seem to have an anti-medication bias, and that may be unintended, yet is seems to be there.

Regardless, this is not what the thread was about, I think that the assessment and diagnosis of personality disorders is over done and it ignores the guidelines of the DSM.
The following rant is not addressed to BN at all.

To the others who are making foolish statements that deny the existence of mental illness, all I can say is you are wrong. There are a host of people who make over diagnosis and medicalization of non-issues a real problem, and I fault them big time. They overuse terms de jure like 'asperger's', tourettes', 'bipolar', 'autism', 'hyperactive' and many more, with no training, no supervision and no clinical reference to what the heck they are saying. And I fault them big time. But I really can not stand the people who want to act like mental illness is 'just the stigmatizing of eccentric behaviors'. I am sorry you fools (not you BN) but you are wrong, people do not commit suicide or attempt suicide because they are eccentric, they do not end up homeless and exploited because they are eccentric. Mental illness is vastly undertreated in the US and all the protestant moralizing about how it is just 'lazy' and 'wimpy' and 'whiny' makes me sick. I have seen people who are ODed and really unhappy, I have seen people covered with blood and sutures up their arms, I have seen what lavage looks like, and I have seen people die from liver failure from acetaminophen toxicity. I have known people who suffered and died because they had a mental illness. It is not a myth. Some people who claim so are just ignorant.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

Sorry BN, I still see you stating what I believe to be errors, but I will not derail the thread further. Nor shall I bash what I consider to be your errors.
I would just recommend that you stop over generalizing. You seem to have an anti-medication bias, and that may be unintended, yet is seems to be there.

Nowhere in this thread have I said schizophrenics shouldn't be given medication, or that anyone else with a serious problem shouldn't be given medication. I'm simply saying that if there are techniques that can reduce the amount they have to take, they're a very good thing. It's so common for people with schizophrenia to complain about the unpleasant side effects they get from their medication that I don't understand how you can't understand my point of view. I'm talking about over-medication here, not medication per se.

When I was working on the hellp-line for people with anxiety disorders, just as I spoke to people in distress who'd been in therapy, sometimes even for years, that didn't help them, and sometimes made them worse, I also spoke to many people who were distressed because they'd been to their doctors and all they were being offered was medication to dampen their symptoms, when what they wanted was good old advice on how to get rid of them altogether by themselves, advice on techniques that do actually exist. I'm not talking about schizophrenia here, but conditions like panic disorder that have been treated successfully with various forms of psychological therapy for years. While some anxiety problems have physical causes, a lot can be dealt with by a person using psychological techniques. What I object to is offering people medication to simply dull their symptoms, when there are techniques that could help them get rid of them altogether, and reduce the risk of them relapsing, since if they start, they'll know what to do to stop themselves.

One question we had to ask people on the help-line was whether they'd been to see their doctor, and I used to dread asking that question, because I'd almost always hear a story of how they'd been to see them, but rather than being offered psychological help with their symptoms, which was what they wanted, they were just fobbed off, as they tended to see it, with pills. They tended to be quite upset about it.

Medication is used as the cheap option a lot of the time. But then, I question whether it really is cheaper in the long run. I led a recovery group for people with anxiety disorders; and someone else on the team said he thought it would be a good use of the doctors' time, as well as cutting down on prescription costs, if rather than seeing people with anxiety disorders one by one every few weeks or whenever things got too much for them or they wanted prescriptions renewed or whatever, the doctors held recovery or educational groups themselves, where they could see a group of patients together, and train them in self-help techniques. Unfortunately, at the moment, it seems many doctors don't even know psychological techniques exist.

There is, however, a Books on prescription scheme. It is being recognised that self-help techniques are valuable, and could sometimes help patients far more than pills. The "more motivated" patients with the "less intense" symptoms, of course.

Sometimes, when people use psychological techniques for getting over their anxiety disorders, like improving their assertiveness skills, making sure they get their life circumstances improved and so on, they realise their well-being is really increasing, and that if they'd just allowed themselves to have their symptoms dulled with medication, they wouldn't have sought for options that turned out to increase their whole quality of life long-term.

As I said earlier, it's even sadder when children are over-medicated, instead of receiving help with the problems that are making them depressed, disruptive or whatever.

As for schizophrenia, as one or more of the articles I linked to said, psychological techniques can reduce relapse rates and reduce the need for medication. Given the unpleasant side effects of schizophrenia medication, I can't understand how you could have a blanket rejection of any point of view that believes that's a good thing, especially since the side effects of the older drugs are a major reason some schizophrenics are put off taking medications altogether, making them a potential danger to themselves and others when they relapse because they haven't taken it. I'll quote from an old news article about the common side effects of schizophrenia medication:

The results of an international study released today show that many patients with schizophrenia stop taking their
antipsychotic medication because of the side effects they experience. The study also suggests that many medical professionals do not routinely ask about side effects and underestimate the proportion of patients suffering from them. ...

These findings suggest that there are patients suffering treatment side effects which are not recognised and addressed by their psychiatrist -- and they may stop taking their medication and risk a consequent relapse of their illness as a result. ...

The side effects most commonly linked to many older antipsychotic drugs include a syndrome of involuntary muscle movements, for example tremors, writhing
movements of the face, mouth or hands, muscle spasms and uncontrollable restlessness collectively called extrapyramidal symptoms or EPS. Many patients
in the study found these side effects distressing, particularly uncontrollable restlessness and tremors which they considered to be among the most serious
side effects for them. ...

The newer "atypical" anti-psychotic drugs often don't have so many side effects, though they're more expensive. But there are still dangers with them, for instance with one being linked to the development of diabetes.

I once went to a day of lectures by a psychologist who himself had schizophrenia, but who generally managed to keep it under control with a much smaller dose of medication than that commonly given to people with schizophrenia, though it was an older drug that some hated. He found it helpful though, perhaps because the dose he was taking was a lot smaller than would generally be given. He only increased the dose when he felt the symptoms of a potential relapse coming on, and that stopped it in its tracks. But he said what had really worked to calm his symptoms was changing his lifestyle, getting out of a stressful environment and going to live where there were lots of other eccentric people so he could feel he fitted in and belonged. He didn't like the fact that psychiatrists thought schizophrenia was entirely negative, because he thought there could actually be positive aspects to it sometimes. He called for more willingness among psychiatrists to understand schizophrenic patients instead of just seeing them as broken people who needed to be controlled and in need of medication. His work with patients, along with that of others, is referenced and discussed in this article:

First-person accounts of delusions - Psychiatric Bulletin

... The delusions described were usually gradual in onset and often occurred in the context of an odd or fearful mood, which was accompanied by distorted reasoning. Recovery was also gradual with an intermediate stage of reality-testing
or fluctuation between belief and disbelief. Many patients retained residual aspects of delusional thinking after recovery. Most attributed their recovery to a combination of medication, psychotherapy, social support and personal coping strategies; some felt that their illness had enhanced their self-awareness or spirituality. ...

 

[Damien Evans]

Those who drew that 1 in 5 conclusion must be sick. Alternatively, maybe abnormality in their eyes is the norm in our eye.
After reading the OP, I started wondering: am I the 1 in 5?

I'm definitely the one.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

Humm. No. But yes, the notion that a schizophrenic is going to cure themselves by reading a self help book makes me doubt the larger strategy that recommends it.

I've never seen anyone, anywhere, ever, claim that people can cure themselves from schizophrenia just by reading a self-help book. Perhaps you have? That's certainly not what I said in this thread. I said that as the people with schizophrenia can be helped to some extent with symptoms by non-medical interventions, they could get information about helpful non-medical interventions from a self-help book.

Similarly, people with schizophrenia can get useful ideas on what might help them from support forums set up for them. For instance, some people who hear voices find it useful to put music on, and gradually turn it down, and they find their voices get quieter with the music. That doesn't work for everyone. But if some people find it helpful, I think it's useful that they have the opportunity to have got the idea and tried it by reading what other people have said about how it helped them.

There are people out there who condemn any such forums out of hand, calling them dangerous, saying doctors are the only ones qualified to treat schizophrenia. But I will never be convinced that such a narrow approach is a good one, since while it's of course extremely important that schizophrenics get the advice and treatment of the medical profession, and while it's very important that forums set up for people with schizophrenia to give each other tips on non-medical things that have worked in helping to reduce their symptoms are run responsibly, so you don't, for example, get threads where some people are encouraging others not to take their medication, I will disagree with anyone who says such forums shouldn't exist at all. Obviously they have to be closely supervised, but if so, they can become places where the more lucid can support those experiencing distressing symptoms with information as well as emotional support. Here's an example of a support forum for people with schizophrenia. I'm not saying I think it's a perfect example of one. But if not, then I think the way forward is to work out ways of improving it, rather than condemning its existence, as some might do.

As for the Human Givens Institute:

From their charter:

Words that paralyse thought 

A technique used by political managers or administrative 'spinners' to give the appearance of action is that, whenever they want to impose another untried recipe for doing something, they dress it up with abstract nouns — words with no substance that make people feel good or certain about what is being said.

For example, 'evil', 'truth', 'freedom', 'wealth', 'change', 'choice', 'respect', 'potential', 'innovations', 'modernisation', 'spiritual', 'values', 'principles',
'progress', 'success', 'quality', 'enterprise', 'ethics', 'standards', 'democracy', 'terror', 'aspirations', 'education', 'equality', etc. 

These words are called nominalisations by linguists. They actively muddle clear communication because, by pretending to refer to something concrete, the
people using them create a feeling in the listener that something meaningful is being said when it isn't.

http://www.hgi.org.uk/charter/charter-pg7.htm

This seems like a version of 'poisoning the well'. In an attempt to promote a new idea, old words must be eliminated or given new meaning. While clarity of thought is advocated, they take many many pages to elaborate their view. I call this 'cult-like'.

I've actually heard what they really mean explained in person in one of their seminars. What they're saying is that politicians and such people can produce a feel-good factor in people by deceptively using words that sound good, but really, when you think about them, are abstract. The Human Givens people are really warning against cult-like manipulation. They're saying that when politicians and other such people want to put new ideas into operation, such as introducing new systems in schools so teachers have to test pupils every three years or so, the systems might have drawbacks, such as the fact that teachers will have less freedom to teach according to what they perceive pupils' needs to be, because they have to coach them to pass the test, so they have to narrow down their teaching to what's likely to be in it. But instead of frankly discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the new system they want to introduce, politicians and others will often use a lot of abstract words that sound good, but when it comes down to it, don't actually mean anything. For instance, if they said,

"We are the party of change, innovation and potential! This new quality programme will produce success, enterprise and modernisation.",

If they told you that, it would all sound good, but when you really thought about it, would you be any the wiser as to what they were really going to do? Would they have told you what evidence they had that made them sure their programme was a good one, what new burdens or real-life advantages it might have for teachers and children, exactly how the system will change, and so on? No. They could fill up their speech with all this propaganda/fluff, and people might leave feeling good about the scheme, when really, they haven't heard anything concrete about it.

That's what the Human Givens people are objecting to - the fact that people can be lulled into feeling good about something that isn't good at all, much as young men in wartime might have their emotions played on and actually end up putting their lives in danger because they've been psyched up by lots of meaningless but feel-good propaganda like, "It's time for all brave-hearted men to do their patriotic duty and fight to defend the flag!" What, in practise, does that actually mean? It hasn't said anything about the reason for fighting; it hasn't said anything about the dangers on the battlefield; it's just a way of manipulating people's emotions so they do what you want. That's what the Human Givens people are objecting to.

I didn't realise scientology teaches that all mental problems can be dealt with without drugs. Thanks for the link to the Human Givens blog post about how people are suggesting similarities between the Human Givens approach and scientology. They don't make such bold claims as scientology though. From that post you linked to:

I say this as I have noticed in my online prowlings HG being suspected of an association with Scientology (!?!), I suppose because of our more ‘holistic method of therapy and our openness to accept that drug treatments are not always necessary, and our advancement of the idea that depression is not always simply a chemical imbalance.

Any similarities will just be superficial. While the Human Givens people could be accused of over-charging for their seminars and videos and making them out to be better than they are, I think that's about the extent of their misdeeds, (although I couldn't be entirely sure).

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment

The Rosenhan experiment was a famous experiment into the validity of psychiatric diagnosis conducted by David Rosenhan in 1972. It was published in the journal Science under the title "On being sane in insane places."[1]

Rosenhan's study consisted of two parts. The first involved the use of healthy associates or "pseudopatients," who briefly simulated auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 different psychiatric hospitals in five different states in various locations in the United States. The second involved asking staff at a psychiatric hospital to detect non-existent "fake" patients. In the first case hospital staff failed to detect a single pseudopatient, in the second the staff falsely identified large numbers of genuine patients as impostors. The study is considered an important and influential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis.

The study concluded, "It is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals" and also illustrated the dangers of depersonalization and labeling in psychiatric institutions. It suggested that the use of community mental health facilities which concentrated on specific problems and behaviors rather than psychiatric labels might be a solution and recommended education to make psychiatric workers more aware of the social psychology of their facilities.

Has very much changed in 36 years?

 

[bigred]

Wait, so a purported causal link between negative emotionality and REM sleep needed to discharge that negativity, as put forth by that vapid blurb posted by BN, is as obvious as "water is wet"? Average 12-year olds grasp that? Ah, wait... we should instead spend time questioning the value of the reasonable questioning of such "obvious" claims found in research methodology books because those books might be "outdated". Please.

Yeah that's what I said. Way to take a very general statement and reach for one specific example where it might not be true (PS and even then it's just that, a reach).

This is truly going nowhere and is devolving into ad hominem "LOL'ing" childishness and denigrating misrepresentation of my message.

Oh goody the pot/kettle thing. Figured it was just a matter of time till that was thrown out. Way to accuse of misinterpretation while doing it yourself.

BN has been patient (to a fault perhaps) in explaining himself, near as I can tell (I admit I haven't read everything on some of the lengthier responses). If he is "LOLing" I guess I missed it - I have seen him joke around here and there but seemed he was pretty clear it was a good-natured ribbing.

You are right in one way though: discussion w/you clearly is going nowhere here.

To the others who are making foolish statements that deny the existence of mental illness, all I can say is you are wrong. There are a host of people who make over diagnosis and medicalization of non-issues a real problem, and I fault them big time. They overuse terms de jure like 'asperger's', tourettes', 'bipolar', 'autism', 'hyperactive' and many more, with no training, no supervision and no clinical reference to what the heck they are saying. And I fault them big time.

But I really can not stand the people who want to act like mental illness is 'just the stigmatizing of eccentric behaviors'. I am sorry you fools (not you BN) but you are wrong, people do not commit suicide or attempt suicide because they are eccentric, they do not end up homeless and exploited because they are eccentric. Mental illness is vastly undertreated in the US and all the protestant moralizing about how it is just 'lazy' and 'wimpy' and 'whiny' makes me sick. I have seen people who are ODed and really unhappy, I have seen people covered with blood and sutures up their arms, I have seen what lavage looks like, and I have seen people die from liver failure from acetaminophen toxicity. I have known people who suffered and died because they had a mental illness. It is not a myth. Some people who claim so are just ignorant.

?! Happily I missed that post or part. "Ignorant" is being kind.

 

[technoextreme]

Similarly, people with schizophrenia can get useful ideas on what might help them from support forums set up for them. For instance, some people who hear voices find it useful to put music on, and gradually turn it down, and they find their voices get quieter with the music. That doesn't work for everyone. But if some people find it helpful, I think it's useful that they have the opportunity to have got the idea and tried it by reading what other people have said about how it helped them.

There are people out there who condemn any such forums out of hand, calling them dangerous, saying doctors are the only ones qualified to treat schizophrenia. But I will never be convinced that such a narrow approach is a good one, since while it's of course extremely important that schizophrenics get the advice and treatment of the medical profession, and while it's very important that forums set up for people with schizophrenia to give each other tips on non-medical things that have worked in helping to reduce their symptoms are run responsibly, so you don't, for example, get threads where some people are encouraging others not to take their medication, I will disagree with anyone who says such forums shouldn't exist at all. Obviously they have to be closely supervised, but if so, they can become places where the more lucid can support those experiencing distressing symptoms with information as well as emotional support. Here's an example of a support forum for people with schizophrenia. I'm not saying I think it's a perfect example of one. But if not, then I think the way forward is to work out ways of improving it, rather than condemning its existence, as some might do.

No wonder everyone is arguing with you. Taking action based off of anecdotes is stupid. Really really really really really stupid.

 

[Dancing David]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment



Has very much changed in 36 years?

That is great Ivor, a study about deception. What meaning does it have, there have been recent replications. But the fact that someone can fake mental illness means what?

When you do assesments in the ER, you tak ethe validity of the reporter into account. However you also are under a certain burden to protect, therefore if someone presents as having suicidal ideation and a plan to harm themselves, they will receive intervention.

If I felt that they were faking or just using the phrases that they knew they needed to say, there was little I could do, I had to help them get some sort of intervention. They were usually discharged in short order by the admiting doctor, and some were refused admission at the hospital.

So what do you think that study means? Why should it matter? I had a host of tells for determining if someone was faking their presentation. But what does it matter?

I call you out!

Are you denying the existance of mental illness?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

So what do you think that study means?

I think it means the procedures for diagnosing mental illnesses suck.

Why should it matter?

I think it should matter because I believe it is important to be able to correctly identify people with specific mental illnesses from those who are well, or have different mental illnesses, before applying labels and handing out medication.

I call you out!

Are you denying the existence of mental illness?

No, I'm denying the existence of sensitive and specific diagnostic tests for mental illnesses.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

No wonder everyone is arguing with you. Taking action based off of anecdotes is stupid. Really really really really really stupid.

Here's where the stupidity lies:

The stupidity, callousness, and incomprehensible ignorance, lies in people seeking to deny people things that change their lives and can significantly reduce their distress.

I'm disgusted by the suggestion that anyone would think it right and proper to deny a person help and support from another who gives them tips on what's worked for them in their lives, just because it hasn't been subjected to a double-blind study. In fact, I can't comprehend the mentality of anyone who would seek to suggest such a thing.

If you had schizophrenia, and someone said to you, "I have schizophrenia too, and I've found that I could dull my voices by being assertive and talking back to the nasty ones", or, "I found that identifying the people in my life whose characteristics were like those of the voices I hear helped me, like a bully I once knew, for example, so I now understand where they're coming from better, so it's easier to dismiss them as just my imagination playing tricks, rather than worrying they really are coming from outside myself as I used to", would you shout, "STOP! I don't want to hear about anything that hasn't been subjected to a double-blind scientific study with scrupulous research methodology and a highly significant outcome to prove it works". Would you, in a state of distress as you were, refuse to listen to anything that might help you, simply because it hadn't been subject to rigorous scientific testing?

I very much doubt you would. Not all anecdotes are harmful. As I said, a forum for people with schizophrenia would have to be supervised, to ensure people weren't giving risky advice. But to deny people any advice at all from others, just because it's only anecdotal, is downright cruel, whatever justification you imagine you might have for it - a justification that it would have been helpful if you'd actually explained. Simply making statements like, "This is stupid", not only makes you come across as immature, but it doesn't help discussion, because it doesn't give us any idea of what grounds you have for saying what you're saying.