Different perspectives on mental health

[Greenduck]

I got an article sent to me named the "shamantic view on mental health":

https://www.wakingtimes.com/2018/09/22/t...al-health/

I really found it interesting, putting words into stuff I have thought about previously, on how western psychology sometimes get mental health problems the wrong way - treating it as a disease that you need to "heal" from, rather than supporting the person suffering from it to grow out from it and learn the valuable lessons it can teach.

The same with psychosis, where meds take away the symptoms but the lessons learned from it can't be incorporated for the person because the support is not good enough.

A quote in the article

We had a lot of trouble with western mental health workers who came here immediately after the genocide and we had to ask some of them to leave. They came and their practice did not involve being outside in the sun where you begin to feel better. There was no music or drumming to get your blood flowing again. There was no sense that everyone had taken the day off so that the entire community could come together to try to lift you up and bring you back to joy. There was no acknowledgement of the depression as something invasive and external that could actually be cast out again.Instead they would take people one at a time into these dingy little rooms and have them sit around for an hour or so and talk about bad things that had happened to them. We had to ask them to leave. – A Rwandan talking to writer, Andrew Solomon

John Weir Perry, who put these ideas into practice in a medication free facility called Diabasis, suggests these experiences are a dramatic re-ordering of the person’s psyche from a distorted state to an more ordered one. To me this is like cleaning a messy house, sometimes it needs to get messier in order to sort everything out. Perry also said that ‘it is justifiable to regard the term “sickness” as pertaining not to the acute turmoil but to the prepsychotic personality… the renewal process occuring in the acute episode may be considered nature’s way of setting things right.’ This is echoed by Jiddu Krishnamurti‘s statement that ‘it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.’

I though the article was interesting and think that the attitude towards mental and emotional health is somewhat close to what you can find here on the forum, so I though it would be of interest and someone maybe wanted to share what they thought about it!

[findingme]

Just browsing through your post here, it's sad but very true that western medicine and healing is NOT aimed at healing. Not at all. Professionals coming to Rwanda using western practices is......stupid. It doesn't work here, and it won't work there.

Simply put, our whole medical and health culture is focused on "getting and keeping the money". It's a money business, not a healing business, and it's a risky move to try to change it.

That's why I come here, use subliminals, learn more freedom, and change myself--the only person I have power over. They're playing their game; I'll play mine. We do have a lot more power than they tell us. Because they've been slowly and steadily brainwashing us from childhood on. Waking up from that is, in no small way, miraculous.

Thanks for posting this.

[Omni3]

Thanks for posting the article. It touches many points close to my heart.

[Greenduck]

Just browsing through your post here, it's sad but very true that western medicine and healing is NOT aimed at healing. Not at all. Professionals coming to Rwanda using western practices is......stupid. It doesn't work here, and it won't work there.

Simply put, our whole medical and health culture is focused on "getting and keeping the money". It's a money business, not a healing business, and it's a risky move to try to change it.

That's why I come here, use subliminals, learn more freedom, and change myself--the only person I have power over. They're playing their game; I'll play mine. We do have a lot more power than they tell us. Because they've been slowly and steadily brainwashing us from childhood on. Waking up from that is, in no small way, miraculous.

Thanks for posting this.

I think that they are trying to do what they can with the knowledge they have, but that knowledge isn't enough to help people with mental health problems. Mental health can't be standardised and understood in scientific terms, but stems from an understanding one can only achieve by dealing with their own problems. I saw an interesting talk with Dr. Gabor maté who mentioned that the medical profession is in large represented by people running away from their own problems to a profession where they will have power, be needed by others, and can focus on their career - all of things that a person who don't want to deal with their own problems and want to substitute it with other things will thrive. So that could be a reason why the medical profession is reluctant to looking at new angles on mental health, because of their own personal inability and resistance to relate to it.

[Have at ye]

Just browsing through your post here, it's sad but very true that western medicine and healing is NOT aimed at healing.  Not at all.  Professionals coming to Rwanda using western practices is......stupid.  It doesn't work here, and it won't work there.

Simply put, our whole medical and health culture is focused on "getting and keeping the money".  It's a money business, not a healing business, and it's a risky move to try to change it.

That's why I come here, use subliminals, learn more freedom, and change myself--the only person I have power over.  They're playing their game; I'll play mine.  We do have a lot more power than they tell us.  Because they've been slowly and steadily brainwashing us from childhood on.  Waking up from that is, in no small way, miraculous.  

Thanks for posting this.

I think that they are trying to do what they can with the knowledge they have, but that knowledge isn't enough to help people with mental health problems. Mental health can't be standardised and understood in scientific terms, but stems from an understanding one can only achieve by dealing with their own problems. I saw an interesting talk with Dr. Gabor maté who mentioned that the medical profession is in large represented by people running away from their own problems to a profession where they will have power, be needed by others, and can focus on their career - all of things that a person who don't want to deal with their own problems and want to substitute it with other things will thrive. So that could be a reason why the medical profession is reluctant to looking at new angles on mental health, because of their own personal inability and resistance to relate to it.

Hey, I know a foxy psychotherapist who did *just* that. Trouble is, she decided to go the psychoanalytic route a bit "for fun" and now she's healing properly, heheh.

If you have the time and inclination, I would recommend you read some Lacan, most of his stuff is in English translation by now, as well as the daddy Freud stuff he used as a basis. I believe you'd like it as he started out on his own upon noticing that the psychiatric establishment of his time started falling into the trap of stale doctrine and forceful "scientification" (a.k.a. "the Popperization" of psychotherapy; so, in short, trying to make it *look* like a strictly empirical science, like biology, anatomy and such, while it's not, lol)/"psychologization" of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis and such.

I guess you could try Zizek's (the Peterson debate guy) "Reading Lacan" to get a pretty decent overview and guideline with amusing examples taken from popular culture, but Zizek purposefully omitted the therapeutic application of Lacan's ideas in that book.

[Have at ye]

Also, as a bonus, here's a quote from creepy uncle Lacan's "On conducting treatment" (IIRC is what it was called in English, lulz. It's from "Ecrits") I used to troll said foxy psychotherapist a bit, to open her eyes a tad.

"A dream, after all, is but a dream. Those who now disdain it as a tool in analysis have found, as we have seen, surer and more direct roads by which to bring the patient back to sound principles and normal desires, those that satisfy true needs. Which needs? Why, everyone's needs, my friend! If that is what frightens you, have faith in your psychoanalyst and climb the Eiffel Tower to see how beautiful Paris is. Too bad some people jump over the railing on the first deck, precisely those whose needs have all been restored to their proper proportions. A negative therapeutic reaction, I would call it".

[findingme]

Have at Ye,

I've never heard of Lacan, but it's been 20 years since undergraduate studies, and I was a psych major. For me personally, reading the original texts of Jung, for example, were a real trial. I never read his stuff in school (seriously), but was re-introduced to him by an AA guy who was fascinated by his works. I read maybe 2 or 3 pages, and I felt like I was behind by a whole mile in a race. A single sentence had so many connections--and possibilities--which made me slow down and attempt to find a single focus. Maybe I was in his later works, as his words and ideas flowed easily, but digesting it took some real work. Also, I think it was hard since when I'm reading about emotionally laden subjects, I try to identify with the author's aim and intention. In psyche reading, it makes it doubly hard trying to BOTH identify and read with some heart distance. Knowing Jung wrote quite a bit, I quit the reading, and also trying to identify. His formulations were all on a different level.

I'm doing some mental adjusting on DMSI now, so I'm trying to be clear. Having done Shannon's subs for some time now, I've let go of some baggage, and old self-made demands for emotional attention to possibilities of healing are not as pressing now as they used to be. I'm proud to admit that really. Other's thoughts of who and how I am don't pressure me so much anymore. Just like in relationships, I'd sometime begin a reading a psyche or self-help book expecting some answer I could use. But this wore me down. My expectations hurt me first and foremost. It made me realize I was just circling the same old problem I'd been circling for decades.

Which is really true. My first experience with subliminals was with a hypnotist who made subliminal recordings of his sessions, and when I realized I felt BETTER after listening for a few weeks, I was astounded. Seeking something more was how I found sub-shop. For learning about healing didn't help, and very rarely has. Seeing my own inner truths without being overrun by fear is.......amazing. I'm still getting this.

I've jumped over the railings a few times using Shannon's subs. The difference between now and 2 years ago when I came here? I'm kinder and nicer to myself for following old patterns. The patterns create enough pain by themselves. I'd apologize to anyone I'd imagined I'd upset, and I was always on hyper-alert for this. In other words, fear ruled my whole thought life. I reacted to fear non-stop, and my life got small. Small seems safe, but the only thing smaller than a small life is death. It's not my time, I'm here, and these subs are still cleaning the shit out. The difference is this is a LIFE. It's my full-time everyday (inexpensive) therapy, and it's definitely enjoyable

Going to go write in my journal now. This stimulated my thinking.

[Have at ye]

Nice! And good for you, friend. I love me some well-made subliminals as much as the other guy. Sometimes I feel like we're part of something big that's going to be making waves soon.

Jung is a doozy to read, especially later Jung, I'll grant you that. Lacan is the French guy who employed the tools of linguistic structuralism to perform a meta-analysis of Freud's seminal works, the ones that formed the basis of all modern "psyche" inquiries, and then tried to see how far he can take it and how it's applicable to psychotherapy. Funnily enough, he does not seem to think much of Jung (he calls his approach towards the unconscious "Romantic", heh), but - at the same time - appears to have been heavily influenced by sources which, on this forum, would firmly fall under the umbrella term "Rule 4 stuff" himself. Heck, I even found a parallel between his linguistic signifier-unconscious perceptual filter-subject's intepretation relation example and Einstein's special theory of relativity. They both used the same analogy - the one with the "moving trains and relative observers".

He's not easy to read at first, because in his series of Seminars, aimed at a broader public, he employed a style of expression which, I guess, could be termed as "occult", and he did it on purpose. Then he'd write a companion piece to each seminar, which would elucidate on the issues he was driving at, but aimed at an audience of practicing psychoanalysts, so he'd use a lot of that lingo in those. These are the "Ecrits".

I actually ended up going to the library today to read a neat little collection of Lacan's thingies called "Female sexuality" (DMSI made me do it, I swear! ), and it got my head really going. I also chanced upon a reference to daddy Freud's final, unfinished essay which appears to be pointing towards a potential formative function of fear/anxiety in psyche formation, which I'm gonna be reading ASAP (supposedly it's in Freud's "The Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence").