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To state that western cultural medicine and psychiatry can "cause havoc and destruction in the lives of individuals and families, even to the point of suicide" is very misleading.
This statement gives me a very good idea of where you are "coming from." Our differences on this subject remain vast--oceanic perhaps.
As regards my research--I have much research on this subject at my disposal (too much!) but for several reasons, some of them personal, I do not wish to share them with you. I am well aware that you will likely infer from this that I am merely "skirting the issue" because I cannot "back up my claims," but this is not the case.
I will respecfully say this much: the primary reason I do not wish to share my research with you (apart from the fact that my thesis is somewhat "groundbreaking" and still a work in progress) is because you have framed the terms of reference of this particular discussion in accordance with a belief system whose axioms I do not accept. A PhD psychologist friend of mine warned me many, many years ago that when discussing the topic of the hidden scandal within the mental health profession with a member of that profession (what he termed a "true believer") I should NEVER engage unless we first agreed to common terms of reference. To engage without such terms would, my friend explained, set up an "immediate imbalance of power," precluding any objectivity.
Much of what you have written on this thread indicates to me that you and I do not share such a common terms of reference. The following paragraph really "nails it" for me:
What I DID find in my search for articles/abstracts was the role that both religion and spirituality can and does play in the life of patients suffering from bipolar disorder, and the positive role it plays. The key, however, is the fact that both religion and spirituality can play a positive role in the patient's life as opposed to being the primary, front line treatment modality. One of the points that needs to be pointed out is that for those prone to religious delusions, spirituality can be a two-sided coin that can either work for, or against the patient. With proper medication to stabalize, and effective forms of clinical treatment, yes, studies have shown that religious belief/spirituality can help. Studies exist that support this along cross cultural lines.
If I could sum up our differences here in a single sentence I would say as follows:
Some view religion through the lense of psychology and others view psychology through the lense of religion, but more often than not, the former do not even realise they have a lense.
Is there any "practicing mental health professional" with whom I would engage freely on this topic and share my research? Yes--the one who immediately comes to mind is Bob Fancher, a psychotherapist who wrote a rather obscure book called "Cultures of Healing." It's a fairly long and dense book, but brilliant nonetheless.
For all these reasons I have cited, my view that any such discussion would be unfruitful, and perhaps even harmful, remains intact. Sorry I cannot engage beyond that.
I would appreciate any cites or names of these mental health practitioners who disagree. I am not familiar with ANY who are qualified that fit your claims.
I have no idea how you define the word "qualified." Please see my post above to June 7.
Oh, the research is out there, Mystic. But you may be looking "through the wrong lense."
To state that western cultural medicine and psychiatry can "cause havoc and destruction in the lives of individuals and families, even to the point of suicide" is very misleading.
This statement gives me a very good idea of where you are "coming from." Our differences on this subject remain vast--oceanic perhaps.
As regards my research--I have much research on this subject at my disposal (too much!) but for several reasons, some of them personal, I do not wish to share them with you. I am well aware that you will likely infer from this that I am merely "skirting the issue" because I cannot "back up my claims," but this is not the case.
I will respecfully say this much: the primary reason I do not wish to share my research with you (apart from the fact that my thesis is somewhat "groundbreaking" and still a work in progress) is because you have framed the terms of reference of this particular discussion in accordance with a belief system whose axioms I do not accept. A PhD psychologist friend of mine warned me many, many years ago that when discussing the topic of the hidden scandal within the mental health profession with a member of that profession (what he termed a "true believer") I should NEVER engage unless we first agreed to common terms of reference. To engage without such terms would, my friend explained, set up an "immediate imbalance of power," precluding any objectivity.
Much of what you have written on this thread indicates to me that you and I do not share such a common terms of reference. The following paragraph really "nails it" for me:
What I DID find in my search for articles/abstracts was the role that both religion and spirituality can and does play in the life of patients suffering from bipolar disorder, and the positive role it plays. The key, however, is the fact that both religion and spirituality can play a positive role in the patient's life as opposed to being the primary, front line treatment modality. One of the points that needs to be pointed out is that for those prone to religious delusions, spirituality can be a two-sided coin that can either work for, or against the patient. With proper medication to stabalize, and effective forms of clinical treatment, yes, studies have shown that religious belief/spirituality can help. Studies exist that support this along cross cultural lines.
If I could sum up our differences here in a single sentence I would say as follows:
Some view religion through the lense of psychology and others view psychology through the lense of religion, but more often than not, the former do not even realise they have a lense.
Is there any "practicing mental health professional" with whom I would engage freely on this topic and share my research? Yes--the one who immediately comes to mind is Bob Fancher, a psychotherapist who wrote a rather obscure book called "Cultures of Healing." It's a fairly long and dense book, but brilliant nonetheless.
For all these reasons I have cited, my view that any such discussion would be unfruitful, and perhaps even harmful, remains intact. Sorry I cannot engage beyond that.
June has no problem with you decision to not engage in any further discussion of this matter. It would seem like a fair and peaceful decision in light of your having put out a contrary point of view, but not wishing to cite sources by which to support it. However, like I said, I have no problem with a member not wishing to further engage in a dialogue.
The only thing I take issue with is your characterization of mental health professionals. --Not for any personal reason, but rather, due to what could be inferred as a mischaracterization of psychiatrists and psychotherapists in general.
In particular:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreaming Spires
Some view religion through the lense of psychology and others view psychology through the lense of religion, but more often than not, the former do not even realise they have a lense.
For the record, even in an area of the country that is perhaps known for it's vast number of secularists, and even despite having received clinical training at a university which is equally as thought of as "secular" the following needs to be pointed out:
Any psychiatrist or psychotherapist that DOES NOT validate, and take into account a patient's religious belief, and honor that, respectfully, is a psychiatrist or psychotherapist that I, for one, would not wish to associate, let alone personally be treated by, if I was considering such. The reality of the situatioin is this: Your better trained professionals are defined as those who hold a systemic view of, and understanding of, human beings. That means that mental health professionals think in terms of the biological, psychological, social, and yes, spiritual aspects of their patients. "Spirituality" has not only been incorporated into the DSM, but it has been well researched and documented as regards the role it plays in any clinician's practice. To disregard the fact that human beings have religious and spiritual aspects, and beliefs that they bring into the consultation room would be, in my opinion, ignorant at best, and unethical at the very least.
I happen to work with three colleagues who are closely associated with religion. One is an ordained minister who chose to go into the field of mental health. The other two are women who also hold degrees from Harvard Divinity School (along with where they received their degrees in order to practice psychotherapy.) I can attest for the fact that my own clinical training at Harvard included the "bio-psycho-social-spiritual" aspects of treating patients. Not every mental health professional is going to be a Christian, or for that matter, a believer. If an individual is more comfortable with someone who is, there are certainly believing, Christian mental health professionals out there, even up here, in Massachusetts.
But to characterize in a general way mental health professionals as totally lacking a "lens" which takes into account the primary role that religious belief plays in people's lives is an inaccurate one. --At least in my experience within the field of mental health, I have yet to encounter a colleague who spoke poorly, condescendingly, or mockingly about any patient who expressed religious beliefs or spiritual strivings. We simply don't do that. It would be highly unprofessional, and one would come under much scrutiny by their colleagues for having done so.
In short: religion, spirituality, and the meaning both have and the role they play in our patient's lives is something that is listened to, respected, and worked with.
Hope this clarifies just a bit, and "no problemo" as regards not wishing to engage in a conversation or debate on this topic. *Peace.*
I will respecfully say this much: the primary reason I do not wish to share my research with you (apart from the fact that my thesis is somewhat "groundbreaking" and still a work in progress) is because you have framed the terms of reference of this particular discussion in accordance with a belief system whose axioms I do not accept. A PhD psychologist friend of mine warned me many, many years ago that when discussing the topic of the hidden scandal within the mental health profession with a member of that profession (what he termed a "true believer") I should NEVER engage unless we first agreed to common terms of reference. To engage without such terms would, my friend explained, set up an "immediate imbalance of power," precluding any objectivity.
If I could sum up our differences here in a single sentence I would say as follows:
Some view religion through the lense of psychology and others view psychology through the lense of religion, but more often than not, the former do not even realise they have a lense.
Is there any "practicing mental health professional" with whom I would engage freely on this topic and share my research? Yes--the one who immediately comes to mind is Bob Fancher, a psychotherapist who wrote a rather obscure book called "Cultures of Healing." It's a fairly long and dense book, but brilliant nonetheless.
For all these reasons I have cited, my view that any such discussion would be unfruitful, and perhaps even harmful, remains intact. Sorry I cannot engage beyond that.
Your insinuations about scandal in the mental health profession is probably no more than unsupported and misinterpreted inferences from the legitimate concerns and observations of your Life Therapy icon, Fancher. EVERY profession has its warts . . . none of which are any more likely to justify the "hidden scandal in the mental health profession" alluded to . . . than those in any other profession. It is staffed by people of all capabilities, agendas and incompetencies . . . as are all professions.
If any of this sort of "scandal" is serving as the basis for your dangerous implication that serious mental illness (like properly diagnosed BiPolar Disorder) should be treated with religious or spiritual means . . . you are seriously misguided. This kind of irrational thinking about serious medical disorders is as dangerous as those parents who let their child die of untreated diabetes by relying on God to heal him. People who think like that pose a serious danger to all those around them.
Unfortunately, you are completely misunderstanding what I meant by the following statement:
Some view religion through the lense of psychology and others view psychology through the lense of religion, but more often than not, the former do not even realise they have a lense.
Since it is a really important point, I feel compelled to clarify:
The statement quoted in blue above has nothing whatsoever to do with "bio-psycho-social-spiritual" aspects of treating patients. I am well-aware how psychologists are trained in this respect and have no quibble whatsoever with your characterization of that training, or how it is usually (or supposed to be--who really knows what happens behind closed doors?) applied in practice.
So how do I make my point clear? I don't know.
Let me try this: you citing the DSM, for example, to support any point you are trying to make to me assumes you accept the DSM is an authoriative source; expecting me to accept it as authoratiative source, however, is the exact equivalent of me citing the Bible as an authoritative source for a point i am trying to make to you with the expectation that you, too, would accept it as authoritative--something I would not do because I respect that as regards religion you and I do not share common terms of reference.
Let me come at this from another angle: While looking for some information on Dr. Fancher, I found a book review on Amazon written by "Jack" from Washington, D.C. which is very much on point with my "blue quote" cited above:
If there were still hippies, this book would not have to be written. Thinking back to those days, I recall my friend Alex coming from therapy one day and saying, "Psychologists basically want you to conform." He was right then, but in our age of conformity, common sense statements like that will not be enough to educate a public inundated with data showing the efficacy of therapy. This book fills that vaccuum and reveals the hidden ideology of each of the contemporary schools of psychotherapeutic schools so cogently, succinctly, and logically that it would probably be blacklisted by most graduate Psychology departments. It is equivalent to Galileo's revelation that the Church had a vision of the solar system, not based on study but on wish-fulfillment. Taking on the psychoanalytic enterprise, behaviorists, Beck's cognitive psychology, and psychopharmacology in one fell swoop, he demonstrates effectively that that the theorists and practitioners of these various "methods" have molded their views in the same way pre-Columbian map makers designed atlases: through conjecture, impressionism, and powerful cultural biases. Regardless of the implied assertions by many that psychotherapy is rising to the level of a science, Fancher shows this to be far from the case. This is of particular importance today as there is a strong move toward defining evidence based or empirically based therapies that work--probably an artifact of pressures from HMO's rather than greater sophistication of understanding the nature of mental illness. Fancher presents two major problems: one is that in dealing with what is a "healthy individual," one must have an ideological basis; and second, the "subjects" are not reliable. Ever take an employment test with a question "Have you ever stolen from an employer?" How would YOU answer? This is a rather crude example, but you get the point. But if you think about the claims therapies make, and think rationally, it seems fairly obvious psychologists are either poorly trained in logic, poorly educated in the nature of human culture, value, and imagination. One gets the feeling from reading the anayses of the reasoning behind what makes therapy work that most psychologists/psychiatrists don't even read the newspaper. One salient example is the popular Beck Cognitive Therapy industry. Your thinking determines how you feel; change your mind, change your emotions--all in 12 easy sessions. I can imagine Doestoevsky or even John Steinbeck in these sessions. "See, John, when you THINK people are poor and exploited and powerless, you will feel sorry for them and write those pessimistic books of yours. Now, just look around, do you see anyone starving to death in my office?" That might be a bit of hyperbole, but not far from the truth. But it is certainly the truth that such methods--if taken at face value--have the potential of converting the search for the end of psychological suffering and the search for meaning to a reductionist level that approaches the quest for mental health on the same level of taking dance lessons to get dates. Fancher hits home when he challenges each of the popular forms of therapeutic schools, showing even psychopharmocology is an enterprise based on Nielson ratings, figuring out what therapists want their patients to feel, then trying to get the chemistry right. At times the author uses a bit more ammunition than he needs. Having hit the nail on the head, he will occasionaly add a few swings of the hammer. Also, while psychopharmocology does have its ideology, it does appear to relieve some suffering at least some of the time, so I'd be hesitant to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Rather than provide more summary, I'd make the point that if you are interested in the field of therapy or counseling--either as a professional or consumer--if you don't read this book, it would be like trying to play chess without knowing what any of the pieces do or how the game is played.
I hope this information clarifies and is somewhat edifying--if not for you, then perhaps for some of the readers of this thread who may be inspired now to dig a little deeper into the claims of the mental health industry--an industry with great potential, but also in great need of reform.
Last edited by DreamingSpires; 06-26-2010 at 08:31 PM..
Your insinuations about scandal in the mental health profession is probably no more than unsupported and misinterpreted inferences from the legitimate concerns and observations of your Life Therapy icon, Fancher. EVERY profession has its warts . . . none of which are any more likely to justify the "hidden scandal in the mental health profession" alluded to . . . than those in any other profession. It is staffed by people of all capabilities, agendas and incompetencies . . . as are all professions.
If any of this sort of "scandal" is serving as the basis for your dangerous implication that serious mental illness (like properly diagnosed BiPolar Disorder) should be treated with religious or spiritual means . . . you are seriously misguided. This kind of irrational thinking about serious medical disorders is as dangerous as those parents who let their child die of untreated diabetes by relying on God to heal him. People who think like that pose a serious danger to all those around them.
Your inferences about how I think "serious mental illness should be treated" are incorrect. If you really want to know what I think, go back and re-read my posts.
I don't know if this holds any relevance to the topic...
Quote:
Excerpt from "Return From Tomorrow" by: Dr George Richie, MD.
...During the thirteen years I had worked as a medical doctor, I'd often had the sense that I was treating only parts of a person, dealing with symptoms of disease rather than the disease itself. At Memorial Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, where I had practiced, as at any large modern hospital, there was no time to know my patients as people. No time to listen to the questions behind the ones they asked in the consulting room.
So at age forty, I had gone back to school. It hadn't been easy to ask my wife to leave Richmond and move to Charlottesville, to uproot our two children from school, to give up my position as president of the Richmond Academy of General Practice, and to go back for more years of study and residency. But in the dozen years since that decision, I had been glad of it many times, and never more so than in this quiet moment at the start of the day....
You may be interested in reading his story...intriguing!
I think there is a fair amount of misdiagnosis and abuse in the mental health world. There is a fair amount of misdiagnosis and abuse in medicine in general or in anything for that matter. Psychology might have more than medicine because psychology is, relatively speaking, less established as a science. The brain is not as well understood as the lungs, so far as I know, and psychology is more recent.
The only thing I'm slightly leery of is the implication that it's inherently or always abusive, which I think is an implication that's potentially dangerous or irresponsible. Psychology strikes me as primitive, but there are times when primitive medicine is better than nothing. If you were in the sixteenth century and severed an artery you'd presumably be better off to try whatever they had then to bleed to death in the field.
Your insinuations about scandal in the mental health profession is probably no more than unsupported and misinterpreted inferences from the legitimate concerns and observations of your Life Therapy icon, Fancher. EVERY profession has its warts . . . none of which are any more likely to justify the "hidden scandal in the mental health profession" alluded to . . . than those in any other profession. It is staffed by people of all capabilities, agendas and incompetencies . . . as are all professions.
If any of this sort of "scandal" is serving as the basis for your dangerous implication that serious mental illness (like properly diagnosed BiPolar Disorder) should be treated with religious or spiritual means . . . you are seriously misguided. This kind of irrational thinking about serious medical disorders is as dangerous as those parents who let their child die of untreated diabetes by relying on God to heal him. People who think like that pose a serious danger to all those around them.
I replied so quickly to your post that I missed your first paragraph. Silly me.
Ummm...actually, the hidden scandals in the profession are something I learned about many years before I ever heard of Bob Fancher. I suspect, however, that he would concur with my assessment that these scandals exist and that their root cause is systemic.
My sources for this information are varied, and many of them first hand--from experience in the UK family courts and in the U.S. court system, for a start. I also have a lot of experience over the years of hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, and rehabilitation facilities (drug rehab, physical rehab, voc rehab), interfacing with psychologists and social workers at various levels. And there are a lot of other things I won't get into here--I'm sure none of them would impress you anyway. But let's just say that in addition to the fact that I read a lot of books I'm also a kind of middle-aged/old person who has been around the block so to speak.
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