Merged Psychological conditions are illusory

[Jonesboy]

Wait........how would any of this be disempowering even if true?

Disempowering because

1) Being yourself is being a patient.
2) Compromised autonomy, split between mind and body. You have been signed up as someone who is affected by your brain.
3) You open yourself to the flattering but empty intrigue of scientific "reasons" and rationalizations.

 

[Jonesboy]

Problem with the reasoning of the OP, and for that matter the other thread that seemed to claim PTSD doesn't exist*, is that if you use it to discount these two conditions, you also need to discount all conditions, everything from depression to cancer. If PTSD doesn't exist, neither does leukemia. If dyslexia doesn't exist, then neither do allergies.

The OP's reasoning on asthma:
Individuals have a range of respiratory skills: hardly unexpected. To make victims from these normal distribution patterns a scientist or medic will arbitrarily declare certain reading ranges as a "condition", as if it has some defining property that distinguishes it from the rest. It does not, of course. Medics privilege the binary - one range is privileged over the other as being not a condition.

*oh. Same poster. Should've realized that right away, feel really bright now.

The next step is to ask yourself whether a condition is revealed by facts, or whether a condition singles out facts. Don't just leave it where you left it.

 

[Jonesboy]

I take it then you don't know anything about the field? You likewise have no evidence to back up your claim? Because I can provide loads of studies regarding the science of psychology.

I'm not impressed at all. We ae looking at the reasoning behind supposed facts. You only want referenced facts.

 

[Jonesboy]

there are criteria for diagnosis, you can't just buy it. As much as I would have like to spell english phonetically, I can't. My mother saying "Sound out the word 'about'." just makes no sense to me, dysphonetic dyslexia. You can say it all you want, I had to memorize it a,b,o,u,t. Now I know it is ab+out but it made no nsense to me at the time.

Now the DSM labels it reading disorder:

Reading achievement. as measured by individually administered standardized tests of reading accuracy or comprehension. is substantially below that expected given the person's chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education.

B. The disturbance in Criterion A significantly interferes with academic achievement or activities of daily living that require reading skills.

C. If a sensory deficit is present, the reading difficulties are in excess of those usually associated with it

Thanks for that clarification. I do not deny the existence of dyslexia, I just believe that it may go overlooked in some cases because of apathy on the part of parents and teachers meaning that the sufferer will go on to struggle with written language in later life whilst on the flipside may be overdiagnosed in others as an excuse for suboptimal performance and to gain academic advantages. Although the diagnostic criteria do exist I'm not sure I'd have much confidence in them because they seem somewhat subjective and arbitrary unlike say x-ray of a suspected fracture or finding tubercle bacilli in sputum. Again its similar to the example of depression that I mentioned earlier - if a pushy parent wanted the diagnosis they could get it.

You missed the point of the DSM definition. The DSM gave arbitrary divisions fromt which a "disorder" is declared.

 

[Jonesboy]

This was my immediate reaction. It's only disempowering if it leads to exclusion or limitation of options. Here in the U.S., at least in the parts I've inhabited, the opposite is generally true. Great efforts are made, with great success, to address dyslexia.
I actually know some people who are, or were, dyslexic. Identification of dyslexia is, when done right (sorry to have to use that terribly privileged term here, but I cling to the primitive notion that some things can be done right and some wrong) anything but disempowering. When a person with dyslexia is correctly identified and special efforts made to overcome it, that person will often end up able to read and continue with his education at a level that would have been impossible if the condition had not been addressed. Not so very long ago people who were dyslexic were labeled as stupid or slow, and denied many opportunities as a result. In other instances, the special education was once reserved only for the luckiest, and perhaps the richest, among us. When Nelson Rockefeller was growing up dyslexic, the special education he got was pretty rare. Two generations later, it's pretty common.

I don't know where Jonesboy comes from (if there's any there there for him at all), but from my American perspective his original post is not only nonsensical, but trivializes and insults the work done by the many educators who have succeeded in opening doors for dyslexic students which once were closed to them by people who, like Jonesboy, failed to recognize the condition and in so doing failed to provide the necessary teaching to get past it.

Jonesboy, even if you were correct in saying that dyslexia somehow doesn't exist, you would be dead wrong in calling it a "disempowering term of abuse." That's just sheer ignorance.

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.

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

I understand not being able to see.
And blindness is not a "reason" for it.

Just as a general question for psychologists on the board:

Does Psychosomatic blindness exist? I have seen it on TV shows before (fiction), but does it have any basis in reality?

@Jonesboy: If psychosomatic blindness exists, do you then immediately deny it, like you do with dyslexia, ADHD and PTSD (did I forget one?)?

 

[Jonesboy]

Which is why the diagnosis of dyslexia is the opposite of "disempowering". I was diagnosed as dyslexic when I was in second grade. I was then put in a separate class where different methods were used to teach us to read. Suddenly everything was much more clear and easy. And while I read more slowly than my peers, and it seems still do, despite reading a lot, avoided having major problems thereafter.

So, if anything, the diagnosis helped to correct the problem and allowed me to go through the rest of my schooling as any other kid. That's the opposite of "disempowering".

You are disempowered because you are thought of as fundamentally damaged goods - a pateint, under the doctor for life, rather than simply as a whole person who cannot read as well as someone else.

You don't need a pseudo diagnosis of "dyslexia" (whatever that is) to get help in reading.

 

[Jonesboy]

I find it curious that if someone has problems reading or comprehending the alphabetic symbol set, he may be classified as dyslexic, yet my inability to make sense of mathematics is considered simple dimness.

Now dim sum, as the Chinese Latin teacher said, but ergo non mathematical? Pourquoi?

Yes, as I was saying "dyslexia", "disorder", "condition" are arbitrary divisions made upon the range of human experience.

Some divisions are not just wrong but dangerous. Dyslexia is wrong because it ascribes causation in particular instances. It is dangerous because it is a gateway diagnosis that favours further predatory subdivisons of the human race.

 

[Jonesboy]

Quote-bumping this, because it was the last post on the page and Jonesboy appears to have missed it.

The cases above are not imaginary examples, they're people I know/knew. The cop, in particular; he was a new member of my National Guard unit and was suffering really intensely from some bad stuff. I played a game of chess with him in the Chaplain's tent during annual Training. Two weeks later he was in the news, posthumously, and his 6 month old daughter was an orphan.

Two Glocks in the mouth, Jonesboy. That is not a healthy healing process.

Your ignorance may seem like innocent innovation when you type it, but I find your half-baked (or maybe fully "baked") theories more than slightly offensive.

Frustration and fear caused by society's failure to understand a natural human process can indeed lead to suicide, as it can in many cases where people feel intellectually or emotionally abandomned.

 

[Jonesboy]

I see Svengali, and how did you read my mind. I find panic uncomfortable, no one taught me that, no one told me that. My flash backs of being raped as a child were not pleasnt, no one taught me they were unpleasnt, it is not a discussion at school or in the media, society or culture.

It was a secret

You sir or madam are seriously mistaken and should stop pretending that you have any advice for people with anxiety disorders.

I have never been taught my feelings are wrong, you have a one trick pony, and it is rather boring.

I can't see how you can find panic uncomfortable. What does panic feel like when you are not uncomfortable with it?

Flashbacks are a great sign. Change your perception of yourself as disordered, and having an illness, and instead work with them. Find out about how tpo do that.

 

[Jonesboy]

I'm still waiting for the evidence to support anything relating to the bare statement in the original post. I wouldn't hold my breath for anything substantive - OP's a very lazy philosopher.

Mind you, he might just get his jollies by throwing and running, in which case the reaction to each of his posts must be most gratifying...

There are lots of non-medical models. The problem with listing them is that you would file them under "cures" or "bogus cures" by default. But, in fact, the language of "cure" is rejected entirely as it is a concept taken from the medical model.

 

[Jonesboy]

So what happened to all the veterans with PTSD who suffered from it for decades before it was finally even recognized as an actual illness, due to an overwhelming number of veterans building up with the condition who most certainly were not getting better?

Do you realize how long it took for this issue to even be recognized by medical science formally?

Medical science has NEVER recognized it. They invented PTSD to masquerade for it. It's their reductionist pseudo-description.

 

[Jonesboy]

Of course he's sold on that. But you're asking for him to believe you. Why should someone trust a very confident random internet guy's "just so" declaration over a massive quantity of devoted experts?

Where is your sales pitch?

Well, what do you do if someone tells you a lie, or poisons your well?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Jonesboy, here's to hoping you are never going to need medical science.
Don't bother to answer, I have added you to my ignore list.

Hans

 

[Jonesboy]

I'll bring it up next group at Swords to Plowshares.

Any personal experience with PTSD jb?

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

I've worked with flashbacks, intense emotions and experiences. But I think you are looking for mainstream, because you think it is safer or is publicly endorsed.

 

[Jonesboy]

More accurately, Jonesboy appears to be sadly misinformed about everything.


We know Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is truly a disorder, because lives can be improved by carefully treating it. Lives are NOT improved by letting such stress linger unreasonably. People tend to seek ineffective, and often dangerous, ways of coping with it, if they are not guided.


This does NOT mean emotions are "wrong". No one is going to blame you for being emotional after a tragedy. But, the human mind was not designed to maintain its own sanity terribly well, after horrific tragedies occur. We are NOT seeking to deny emotion, but rather to put such emotions into constructive rather than destructive use, by carefully treating PTSD.

Your definition is too broad. You seem to be arguing that anything that stops us from feeling bad shows us that feeling bad is a treatable medical condition.

 

[Jonesboy]

Have you suffered from PTSD or uncontrollable randomly triggered panic attacks, Jonesboy? Did you learn to overcome them through novel methods akin to what you're championing?

Describe the proper support you're espousing.

Should the individual be placed on a couch with their flashbacks, told to focus on the experience and aggravate it to it's peak intensity, all the while surrounded by loved ones?

What is this procedure you're recommending be done, as opposed to therapy and medication?

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.

 

[Wudang]

Disempowering because

2) Compromised autonomy, split between mind and body. You have been signed up as someone who is affected by your brain.

The other sentences made no sense, so no comment. This however is at least parseable. Of course I am affected by my brain, I am my bloody brain. Btw what's it like, living as someone not affected by your brain?

 

[Jonesboy]

Jonesboy, would you mind comparing the results of wait-list patients and patients who have a clinical intervention of some type. Which group has a better prognosis?

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.

 

[Jonesboy]

In the real world it appears that medical science does have non-chemical ways to treat PTSD:

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy to combat PTSD

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