GENIUS FORUMS

Faust: Are you suggesting that a philosopher does not need to be a beggar? I can't imagine someone philosophizing from any other position, unless he plans on sacrificing his philosophy or getting killed.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:so there's two doctors I don't think I can trust. This makes me wonder: are they even doctors? Or are they priests?

Neither. They are drug dealers who are only educated by the pharmaceutical industry and are guided away from homeopathic cures by beurocratic bullies. To either quote or paraphrase Kevin Trudeau (depending how good my memory is) -

Did you know that it is actually illegal in the US to claim that specific foods, vitamins, or minerals will cure any disease, yet we know that vitamin C cures scurvy? I could be thrown in jail for claiming that an orange could cure scurvy when that is a long-known medical fact.

Eh-hem. I finally did get a psychiatrist who obviously went into the profession because she wanted to help - so I do trust her, and I asked her the question that had been burning in my mind since I was presented with the ultimatum "quit or be fired" for turning in (to in-house administration) the psychiatrist coworker that a client had complained was staring at her chest through the entire psychiatric session. None of us believed he did that until he dropped his pants in front of me after taking off his shirt and agreeing to keep his pants on. Administration said that wasn't the first time they had complaints like that about him, yet he got to keep his job and I did not. Anyway, the question that burned in my mind (because of that incident and a few other anecdotal stories) was "if a student doctor is not doing very well in med school, do the teachers encourage that student to go into psychiatry? It looks like the easiest field because they don't have to know anything medical other than how psychiatric medications work and interact with other conditions, and there's a pharmacist to intervene before the patient gets the med if the psychiatrist makes a mistake."

What's more, all that secrecy in the mental health field does more to cover up the psychiatrist or counselor than to protect the client, especially because the client recognizes that e is standing on shaky ground to complain because people with mental illnesses (especially those who are mentally ill enough to land on the indigent list) are not taken as reliable witnesses. Who are you going to believe? An upstanding member of the community like a doctor, or a mentally ill person who can't even hold a job? A patient can complain to the board of psychiatry, but the same cause of the mental illness plus the prejudice against the mentally ill prevent the patient/client from complaining most of the time. Once a patient complains to the board of psychiatry, the complaint does go against the psychiatrist - but that isn't fair either because at times, of course someone is going to be wrongly accused.

Well, I got my answer. Although students not doing well in the med program are not guided to psychiatry, the do kind of self-select into the psychiatry program because it is the easiest med school program to get into. It used to be that doctors didn't even have to take one course in counseling - just do the same psyc rotation as everyone else - and they could call themselves a psychiatrist if they wanted to. More specific training has been implemented, but some of the psychiatrists who have been in the profession a long time have been grandfathered into the field essentially untrained. Speaking of untrained, in some states it used to be that all you had to do to be a licensed counselor was just send in a fee (no training or even age limit required), but now there are lots of specific training requirements (although the actual proficiency testing is, IMO, shaky at best) for mental health counselors, along with the associated fees, but no way to really check up on the counselors to see if they are actually using the correct techniques once they have their piece of paper that they paid for. Some things are so obviously unethical that even the patients can figure out there's something wrong with that - but obviously in most cases, the patient will not know whether or not they are being properly treated, because if they knew the proper treatment, many of them could do as well at treating themselves as the counselor. If the counselor were actually smarter or more observant than the client, that would be an extra benefit to the client, or sometimes it is just easier to see something in someone else that one can not see in one's self - but most people in the mental health profession are not geniuses, and are not necessarily even providing the proven techniques (on the occasions that things are proven, rather than just a bunch of "professionals" deciding that something sounds like a good idea).

I could go on, well actually I am in a book that I'm writing now, but that's enough for a post on the topic.

What I will add specific to your situation is this showing the images of a normalish brain on and off marijuana. A normal brain can be damaged by marijuana, but a normal brain can also be damaged by prescription medications. I don't think there has been any research on whether marijuana is a safe or an effective treatment for the manic phase of bipolar disorder. I do not think that you should just take marijuana on your own say-so (you have pointed out yourself that when the brain is not working right, it is prone to make bad decisions), but I do think that if you are all that sure that marijuana helps you, you should go through whatever proper channels there are to get it researched to see if in fact marijuana is an appropriate treatment for mania in bipolar disorder. You may have stumbled on a treatment that is less harmful than pharmaceuticals, or you may have a misperception based on the changes that any drug makes on the brain. A double blind study (where neither you nor your observer know if you are smoking marijuana or clove cigarettes) would be in order - in a wise world. I don't know if Canada is any less phobic about marijuana than the US, but you are in the best position to look into whether that is a doable research study. Crud, America outlawed Vegimite; I don't see much hope of American government giving marijuana an unbiased scientific eye...

Eliza: More interesting to me than the effects of marijuana on bipolar disorder is whether or not a weak investigation of fundamental philosophic principles can trigger these illnesses, and that they may actually be caused by the patients' faulty thinking itself (and not, as is almost always assumed, the other way around).

If I refuse to believe that A=A, and I know what that means, I'm gonna be behaving weird.

Well, PTSD is caused by too much really scary stuff happening to a person, so I can see where you are coming from on the possibility of other disorders beginning from wrong thought patterns. Borderline Personality Disorder is - well, actually all of the personality disorders are currently considered to be the result of habitual poor thinking skills... Hmmm... The brain is the most easily malleable organ especially in regards to actual structural changes resulting from different thoughts, so cause and effect is a bit hazier in there. It has been shown that bipolar runs in families, and a child adopted out from a bipolar family is more likely to get bipolar than other adopted children - but there has also been shown to be a genetic link in the propensity to get PTSD. I expect there are both physical and environmental causes to both of these disorders as well as others. Physical drugs can alter the physical brain which in turn alters the intangible thoughts, and since we are in a physical world, in all cases it is easier to alter something physically than intangibly (sometimes it's so difficult to change something just using intangibles that it is impossible - there is, after all, a physical component).

Our goal is to have the brain and the thoughts working optimally, so it is obvious that treating the thoughts is at least as important as treating the brain. In cases where the treatment is successful and the brain has become strong in its optimal performance, sometimes the medication can be weaned away and leave the brain intact in its optimal state. Wrong thinking can damage it again, of course - just like wrong use of an arm by, say, smashing it into a wall, can break it even if it has healed from a previous break - but that's causality. Meanwhile, if one's brain is stabilized long enough - just like a broken arm has to be in a cast for long enough or it won't do any good - and has healed well, I see no reason why the support can not be removed incrementally to try to let the brain take good control on its own. Just like right after you get a cast off, you don't want to get into heavy lifting right away, you don't want damaging stressors right when you are trying to wean off medication. You'll have to assess how well you can provide a stress free environment for yourself for long enough to build up your mental strength as you come off medication. Living at a good monestary for one to five years should be sufficient, with the monks monitoring if you need to go back on medication or not.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:a weak investigation of fundamental philosophic principles can trigger these illnesses, and that they may actually be caused by the patients' faulty thinking itself (and not, as is almost always assumed, the other way around).

I'm quite sure that it is not always faulty thinking that is the primary cause, but I am also quite sure that it is not always the brain messing up first either. I am inclined to agree with you as far as that some of the time (some may even mean most, or half - I'm not willing to assign a percentage to it though) that poor thinking can cause a wide variety of disorders.

Faust13 asked"

who on GF lives near or in Hamilton/Toronto, Ontario, Canada?

Me.

Smoking grass seems to me one of the worst possible drugs to take if you're experiencing other psychiatric problems(not saying you are Trevor,you seem unussually lucent if your posts are anything to go on.).In me it caused 'thinking too much' or more to the point over thinking on subjects trivial.Paranoia often was the result of it's manifestation.It's not the 'soft' drug it's made out to be in my view.

Having said that people of strong mind can cope with it pretty well and for long durations of their life.But it begs the question,if you have a strong mind in the first place,why smoke it at all?

Only speaking anecdotally from viewing heavy smoking friends and from personal experience rather than any scientific findings.

Ataraxia wrote:Only speaking anecdotally from viewing heavy smoking friends and from personal experience rather than any scientific findings.

Well, here is a link that provides both anecdotal and scientific findings.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:Faust: Are you suggesting that a philosopher does not need to be a beggar? I can't imagine someone philosophizing from any other position, unless he plans on sacrificing his philosophy or getting killed.

getting killing? Perhaps you could devote some time to growing food for you and your family in exchange for living space? Search how to grow your own food on Google, there's tons of resources. You'd be surprised how much food you can grow using little time and space if you do it right.

Elizabeth wrote:I'm quite sure that it is not always faulty thinking that is the primary cause, but I am also quite sure that it is not always the brain messing up first either. I am inclined to agree with you as far as that some of the time (some may even mean most, or half - I'm not willing to assign a percentage to it though) that poor thinking can cause a wide variety of disorders.

It IS always faulty or delusional or emotionally attached thinking that causes the psychological problems. Give me 1 "disorder" that is completely devoid of faulty or delusional or emotional thinking. There's NO evidence or any way to measure chemical imbalances because it's a myth. If i'm depressed because I'm lonely or poor, chemical imbalances or drugs have nothing to do with that. Most "disorders" are pure quacks that psychiatrists simply don't like in other people. NO medication is good or worth it because it ISN'T medication, only more damage and blunting of the brain and the destruction of memory, that's how it works. Psychiatry is not a medical science and needs to be abolished.

Faust,

If someone is hit with an axe and it damages the part of the brain that regulates emotion, it is the axe that is the cause of faulty thinking in that individual. Of course it could be argued that it was faulty thinking that caused the axe to damage the brain, but it all becomes a matter of where you want to say the beginning is.

getting axed in the head is a physical injury that we know and see, not a 'mental disorder' randomly popping into existence. fact is, there's always an existential reason for depression.

The physical brain damage causes a mental disorder.

physical brain damage causes PHYSICAL damage though. 'Mental disorders' aren't CAUSED by physical damage, they are existential for fuck's sakes. Sure you can get depressed knowing that you're a vegetable after you got hit with a baseball bat. This is still existential though. Psychiatrists however, like to think that BIOLOGY is ONLY the cause of these mental disorders. So your life's problems has nothing to do with depression, which is why they are criminals.

psychiatric 'mental disorders' are NOT disorders!! They are FACTS OF LIFE, period!!! Just fucking get over it you control freaks! "depression" is originally not a fucking brain injury, neither is "paranoia" "psychoses" "emotional blunting" "anti-social personality disorders (HOLY SHIT THAT'S A DISORDER!!)" "personality disorder (RETARDED)" "narcissism disorder (....)" let's not forget also, "delusions of grandeur" and "irrelevant thoughts".

The DSM is a most retarded, criminal, power-mongering, sadistic, degrading, and exploitative instructional manual.