How do people who disbelieve religion explain exorcisms?

An exorcism would simply be a non-medical therapeutic religious intervention for someone who was having a really bad day.

I think the faith of the person being so treated has a lot more to do with it than my own lack thereof.

I believe that there a number of different reasons for so called ‘demonic possession’... all of which can be entirely explained in non-supernatural ways. My explanation of exorcism is that it is a simple ritualised way of attempting to conclude something that those involved do not understand. The reasons for it’s apparent success, if this occurs, is entirely dependant on what the real reason behind the ‘possession’ was. Sorry for the vagueness.

Whatever works. Psychologists largely agree that the practitioner is more important than the technique. The people who are like to think they are “possessed” are bound to be significantly religious; what better mechanism would there be for them to respond to. We don’t treat people for having religious beliefs different from our own.

The exception is when an innocent or helpless or no-consenting person (a child) is exposed to a terrifying rite because the “parents” have an illness or an obsession.

very good answers above!!!!

conversation piece in regard to the question: are people like Charles Mansion demon possessed or just evil people?

Placebo effect. A person who deeply believes that the priest or shaman can drive out whatever is ailing them. In some cases, up to 20% of “cures” are due to this effect. There is a serious connection between the mind and disease process.

Agree with @dpworkin that it is a serious ethical breach for believer parents to impose these “treatments” on their minor children.

Find me a non-believer claiming to be possessed and resorting to an exorcism for what can be anything ranging from a psychotic breakdown to full blown multiple personality disorder and then i’ll have something to be puzzled about.

As long as religious persons are the ones claiming to be “possessed” i have no problem figuring it out, again: it could be anything ranging from a psychotic breakdown to full blown multiple personality disorder, delusions of importance or even plain and simple behaving like an idiot to get attentions. As for why exorcisms work in these cases: Imaginary illness cured by imaginary cure. Like placebo effect and hypocondriacs.

I also agree with what @dpworkin said. Personal belief should NEVER be allowed to be a justification for imposing this practices on non consenting members. Problem is that this would make ALL exorcisms inappliable since all the victims are (or pretend to be) non consenting.

My son is bipolar and some of his manic rages seemed like a demon possession. Although I never tried an all out Catholic exorcism I did try Christian intervention. A s a mom, I really wanted this to be a spiritual thing that could be “fixed.” What I found out was that it was a medical condition that could be managed.
I still have my faith and my son has pretty good health now that we have found the right medical intervention.

I also agree with @dpworkin and stranger about the placebo effect.

@BoBo1946… In regards to the Manson types I would say, neither. They are simply people who, due to the events of their lives, are damaged beyond repair. I am not excusing their actions, they just no longer share social norms & so are able to do what people deem evil.

@TheJoker got’cha my friend…the man is the most evil looking person I’ve ever seen! Sixty Minutes did a piece on him…scary….

In the voice of Linda Blair ;)

@lucillelucillelucille loll..got’cha!

@TheJoker I wouldn’t rule out “being dicks” from the equation, though. I mean yes, Manson was batshit, Hitler was as well. Goebbels wasn’t, though. He was as sane as you and me but still he provided propaganda for the nazi regime. He wasn’t mad, he was a dick (Understatement of the century).

I have no problem “explaining” exorcisms because I think they’re bunk.

@syz after watching the Exorcist, would NEVER watch that movie again, totally agree!

It’s all some sort of subconscious mental breakdown. Something goes wrong for the individual, and because of their spiritual beliefs, they subconsciously adapt exorcism related traits to deal with the problem.

Also, I don’t think most exorcisms portrayed in the media are portrayed accurately. I would expect most cases to be truly dumbed down from their television/theatrical reenactments.

@BoBo1946

Charles Manson is neither. He is a very charismatic individual that was offered power by people who wished to follow him, and did not turn down the offering. There are many people who walk freely the face of the earth who have done the same thing – and worse.

@Seek_Kolinahr yikes!!!!!

Guatemala.

@Seek_Kolinahr : I know, like Sarah Palin. ;)

Just jokin, I know she’s not worse than a leader of a murderous cult. Probably. Though, if Manson has never been hunting, then Palin has killed more than he has. Hmmm…

@ubersiren

Charles Manson has never been convicted of a single murder. He is the only person in America to be jailed for life for “conspiracy”.

I know. That’s what I said.

~re-reads~

…Aaahhh….

Forgive me. Blonde moment. ^_^

I’m not exactly sure what to make of exorcisms except that I believe their authenticity is highly questionable. Taking it a step further, another phenomenon known as stigmata is rather strange in and of itself also.

@Thammuz…. cant disagree with ya there buddy!

They are a placebo of the mind. A person in a fragile mental state can appear to the superstitious as possessed. Similarities between Biblical demon possession and Epilepsy have been noted in the past. A person suffering from a mental condition that is psychological rather than biochemical may just require a reason to believe they are cured, and they will feel a physical change and because they believe they are healed the previous behaviour will not return.

Then there’s also the possibility that the subjects are paid actors…...

Something like a placebo effect. A person who believes in god and demons can easily be led to believe that the exorcism is real.

@FireMadeFlesh… that makes alot of sense. It doesn’t seem disimilar to modern day evangelists who supposedly ‘heal’ people with their touch.

Exorcism is an outdated pre-Enlightenment (religious) ritual. Modern psychotherapy is more effective.

How would I explain exorcisms? A bunch of whackos using idiotic, archaic methods in an attempt to help a person with a serious mental disorder.

@mattbrowne: show some statistics to back up that claim. as well. your answer makes it out as if a shrink would even suggest psychotherapy, versus other so-called solutions.

Charles Manson and his ilk are a dime a dozen. They populate our jails. He just picked a movie star to murder, or no one would be paying the slightest bit of attention to him. Like most psychopaths he has become defanged with age, and is just a sad old crazy man in jail.

okay, let me explain the actual question. since I don’t believe in religion.

so, a theory, which has many gaps and inaccuracies: adults have a multiplicity of selves, most dormant, others more action. we patch and stitch together these selves to represent a single executive “me”, sometimes a “sane” one, other times a domineering and inflexible one.

different circumstances, drugs, ritual, acting, etc. can call up some of the minor personalities.

(some of these domineering selves can destroy a person’s ability to live a viable life. let’s say a domineering central self puts its desire to drink alcohol above all others.)

children and adolescents may have a less organized suite of selves.

anyway, at times a previously subordinate personality will completely take over. the previously dominant personality goes into retreat until the exorcism triggers it to return and take over. when the exorcism doesn’t work that means that the personality believes itself immune to the exorcism or it has a lot of strength.

Psychodrama

@Thammuz: I also agree with what @dpworkin said. Personal belief should NEVER be allowed to be a justification for imposing this practices on non consenting [sic] _ members._

if you believe so, consider psychiatry and how the state mandates its on non-consenting parties.

Problem is that this would make ALL exorcisms inappliable since all the victims are (or pretend to be) non consenting.

right.

further to what I said and a more nuanced version of what I said above, we all have rotating personalities, linked complexes, some more dominant than others. so in the course of an everyday life we rotate different but linked personalities.

with have specific triggers for (often) unconsciously activating the personalities. put on a set of clothes and you put on the personality that goes with the clothes. go onto Fluther and activate your Fluther personality (or personalities). and so on.

in other more exotic mental spaces we have the parts of us which usually don’t emerge and of which we have little awareness.

I’m not Christian or Catholic, but there’s something weird about possession and exorcism. I would say most of the time the people are mentally ill or have convinced themselves of the possession (the mind is really powerful), but there are some times when it makes me wonder. I’ve seen a couple of exorcisms (filmed) that were spine-tingling. Like, the voice coming out of the person was so not them. So, it makes me wonder.

The mind can do strange and inexplicable things.

So then none of you has room in your philosophy for the unexplainable? I enjoy rationality and logic. I like to think that I base most of my decisions on logic and rationality, my last relationship notwithstanding.
However, I also believe that there is more on this earth than I can explain. I don’t feel comfortable saying “Such and such does not exist.” Or, “There is no such thing as….” I always feel that I do not have all pertinent information. I think a hidden realm is completely believable. And because there are charlatans out there and gullible Christians who insist on being possessed does not preclude, for me anyway, the possibility that someone CAN be possessed or at least influenced by a demon. Or negative energy if you wish. I just don’t think that my rational mind has all the facts.
As I said in another thread, I like to have an open mind, so my attitude is; show me something. I’ll take a look. I might learn something.
Everybody who wants to take a swing at me, line starts here. One at a time.~

@Trillian – I do and basically said the same in my above answer. :) No one can prove there aren’t demons (which, if they exist, I think are probably concentrated clusters of negative energy). My field is biology, but I’m not totally convinced that paranormal things are rubbish. There are often explanations, but I’ve had my own experiences that I truly cannot explain despite years of pondering.

Regardless of belief, or adherence to the “scientific principle”, we have an ethical obligation to honor the beliefs of differing cultures.

If anyone would like to read a beautifully written, powerful, poignant book about how these issues can end in avoidable, heartbreaking tragedy, there is a book by a noted anthropologist called “The Spirit Catches You and then You Fall Down”, about the cultural misunderstandings that led to the brain-death of a Hmong immigrant who suffered from epilepsy.

@MissAnthrope, you know the stupid thing is, I did read your response! I guess it just got drowned out in all the nay saying. I mean, I don’t know. My daughter and I both saw Paranormal Activity. I was expecting to be terrified, and it was a huge let down. Later we were on the phone talking about it, she said, kind of hesitantly, “Mom, nobody ever once prayed.”
I thought it was interesting that she had said that. I practiced Wicca the entire time she was a child up until about three years ago, but she’s pretty grounded in the Christian faith. So, I know the movie isn’t based on a true story or anything, but she was right. It would have been a lot more believable to me anyway. This is a demonic entity and the stupid guy is going to INSIST that he can handle it and won’t let her call the expert? Are you serious?
So anyway. Maybe it’s because Wicca is so much more accepting of the spiritual realm, and maybe it’s because of the experience I had that converted me. I know what I saw, and I’m here to tell you that I’m not going to be the one to say nay. I’ll stick with “possibly” on this one.

I can’t explain it. I only have the movie to go by though.

@Trillian – I practice Wicca, too, and despite my science background and the scientific debates about the paranormal that I’ve had with people here, my religious beliefs keep me somewhat open-minded. It’s my personal experiences with trance work and the paranormal that keep me convinced that there’s something there. In Wicca, you work with energy a lot and I think energy is the key to many things we can’t explain. Prayer and spells/rituals are really just the same thing, drawing, focusing, and sending out energy to get something in return. Sure, some of the results may be coincidence, but I don’t think it is all the time. I also think that, eventually, we will discover this to be true through science.. it’s just not something we can explain now.

Any kind of mental disorder.

@Ria777 Please tell me you’re kidding. Psychiatry isn’t some bullshit religious practice comparable to our appendix in the sense it’s there only because there’s been no occasion to fucking get rid of it already. Expecially considering how even the Catholic church has realized how exorcisms are bollocks, and “advises” not to recur to exorcisms without first looking for psychologic and psychiatric help. Makes you wonder why even the foremost proponents of such practice have started thinking it might not be the best pick, huh?

Psychiatry is the application of what we KNOW works, after years of study and experimentation. Happy pills, as much as i can dislike them (i have an hostility towards psych meds, but that’s just my opinion) work. They actually make you happy. If i laced your drink one night with happy pills you’d be happy, for no reason, you’d simply be happy.

And since by now we have a decent comprehension of how the brain works it’s only a direct consequence of this that we’re using this knowledge to fix the brains of those whose don’t quite work as they’re supposed to.

Psychology is a little lighter in the sense that simply provides you a setting for you to work out your own problems with the help of someone competent that can point you in the right direction, but that’s another story.

In the words of Spider Jerusalem (From Transmetropolitan, if you happen to have a chance to, read it ,it’s a really good comic): “Yeah. I’m calling your “faith” bullshit. This man needs medical help if he can’t get through his life without something invisible to believe in. [...] This whole god thing comes from the days when our brains weren’t as connected up as they are now, and we all hallucinated daily!”

And by the way, where has this theory of the multiple selves come out from? Just out of curiosity, have you made it up yourself? Expecially the part about exorcism (which might not be completely inaccurate even though it is RATHER simplistic).

@Ria777 – Within the psychotherapeutic community there has been some discussion of empirically-based psychotherapy. In 2001 Bruce Wampold of the University of Wisconsin published “The Great Psychotherapy Debate”. In it Wampold, a former statistician who went on to train as a counseling psychologist, reported that
1. psychotherapy is indeed effective,
2. the type of treatment is not a factor,
3. the theoretical bases of the techniques used as well as the strictness of adherence to those techniques are both not factors,
4. the therapist’s strength of belief in the efficacy of the technique is a factor,
5. the therapist as a person is a large factor,
6. the alliance between the patients and the therapist (meaning affectionate and trusting feelings toward the therapist, motivation and collaboration of the client, and empathic response of the therapist) is a key factor. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotherapy

Demonic possession is not a valid psychiatric or medical diagnosis recognized by either the DSM-IV or the ICD-10. Those who profess a belief in demonic possession have sometimes ascribed the symptoms associated with mental illnesses such as hysteria, mania, psychosis, Tourette’s syndrome, epilepsy, schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder to possession.

Exorcism is not a valid psychiatric or medical treatment.

@mattbrowne: Exorcism is not a valid psychiatric or medical treatment.

and yet it sometimes works. you could use the checklist above and apply it to exorcism as well. take not especially of points 3, 4 and 5. psychiatry passes itself off as science. but look at that list. notice how the factors have no scientific weight. psychiatry has a lot more in common with exorcism than medicine.

will post more later.

@Thammuz, @mattbrowne: I mean that while you (@Thammuz) have an apparent unwillingness to countenance a belief system forced on a person under some circumstances that you don’t mind it under others. the consequences of having psychiatry forced on you can have serious consequences.

right now they have old people who have no legal right to refuse getting given electroshock. they have drugs which mess with your ability to have a sex life, which statistically don’t work better than more exercise or cognitive-behavioral therapy (in your terms, do not “make people happy”*)sold to people who really need better life solutions than pills.

I have a rewired brain because of the Ritalin I got made to make. earlier, at around 8, I had an antipsychotic given to me so serious that they have pretty much taken it off the market. later I had the trauma (which I have not entirely gotten over) of getting locked up in a mental institution twice. that really messed me up bad. they wouldn’t let me out because I did not agree with them. (in shrink talk I “lacked insight”. direct quote.)

now your Spider Jerusalem quote, the second half of it, actually loosely paraphrases a book (can never remember the author and on a roll down so won’t look it up) called The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. please look it up. psychiatry has ignored this book. psychiatry also does not a) modify its practices in light of new developments in neuroscience, b) has turned itself away from thinking of the mind has having any existence at all.

psychiatric institutions (in both senses of the word, though I don’t mean that as a pun) originate not out of science but the medieval (I mean literally medieval here) asylums. therefore institutions (as in crazyhouses) derive from a social and legalistic power and do not relate to science at all.

the helpful work of Eric Berne, Maslov and the antipsychiatry movement got left alone. Maslov gets used by marketers now, I believe, Berne got forgotten. the work of Julian Jaynes, Timothy Leary, John Lilly (thinking of his Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer), all ignored.

speaking of my theories, I didn’t come up with them. it comes from the writing of Trudi Chase, modified by the ideas of the occultist Peter Carroll, the concept of memes (I think that Carroll calls the psyche a “memeplex”, well the neologism originated somewhere) and my own observations. (the theories have John Lilly and Jaynes should probably have some place here. I haven’t really sat down to integrate them, though, and I didn’t want to get too technical.)

finally I want to say, if you consider yourself a materialist or a rationalist, how does the idea of “mental disorders” square with this? answer: they don’t. why attack religion and give Therapy Culture a free pass?

*—in theory (never mind in actuality because in actuality they don’t work even that well) SSRI’s don’t “make you happy”. they may you less unhappy. no pill can really make you happy, bar Ecstasy, which seemed to get good results to resolving trauma, then they went and banned it.

@Thammuz: Psychiatry isn’t some bullshit religious practice comparable to our appendix in the sense it’s there only because there’s been no occasion to fucking get rid of it already.

I would call it exactly that, except I would call it pseudoscientific rather than religious. though I don’t see a substantial difference between therapy and other religious practice, in the context of our world. both depend on faith and ritual and serve a spiritual need. won’t elaborate. it would take a while to get into that discussion.

Expecially considering how even the Catholic church has realized how exorcisms are bollocks, and “advises” not to recur to exorcisms without first looking for psychologic and psychiatric help. Makes you wonder why even the foremost proponents of such practice have started thinking it might not be the best pick, huh?

it hasn’t “realized how exorcisms are bollocks”. it has said, as yourself said, that most “demonic possessions” have another explanation. not all.

if someone had given me an exorcism instead of what they did to me (and remember, I didn’t subscribe to the psychiatric faith) I could have just played along.

also, I want to ask you to say that your post came off as condescending in tone. if you talk down to me, it doesn’t help win me over. (or to put into in Transactional Analysis jargon, you went all Parent on me.)

Incoming wall of text, read at your own risk

@Ria777 There might be a huge cultural gap here but i have to tell you, you live in the US, I live in Europe (Italy to be precise).

I have a family friend who has worked as a psychiatrist (he’s retired now), and a psychologist as a personal friend who’d both tell you that giving antipsychotic medicines to 8 year old boys (Or girls for that matter, and i don’t know wether you’re one or the other, so i’m gonna go ahead and assume you’re male…) is not only dangerous but insane as no illness warranting the use of such strong medicantion could actually be developed to a diagnosable point by that age.

Ritalin shouldn’t even be marketable seeing how meth isn’t, and just because the pharmaceutical lobbies in the US have made it fit to market pretty much anything that doesn’t kill you within 7 days from ingestion as long as it’s in pill form doesn’t mea that every fucking where in the world it’s the same.

Ambien is legal in the US, but take a look at the side effects! I don’t know wether it is legal to sell Zolpidem based drugs here in italy (I can’t find anything on the matter so i can’t say) but i sure as hell don’t know any doctor who’d recommend it (seeing how my doctor is reluctant to give me any medicine when the side effects go beyond “Mild diharrea”) or any one who takes it. My girlfriend’s father suffers from chronic depression and takes medicines as if they were candy so it’s pretty much sure he’d take that one too, expecially since it’s also used to sleep.

Furthermore there’s a huge difference here that mitigates this kind of “let’s give him the pills and cash the cheque” attitude which is that the state pays for the meds here. So it’s harder to just “give them the pills” because the state will cram the bill up your ass if you prescribe pills when you could’ve saved them the money, the prescriptionof strong medications is much more regulated and hyppocrates’ oath is still worth something.
OxyContin comes to mind, and Rush Limbaugh having a prescription for 20 pills of it a day. Here if a doctor actually wrote such prescription, the medical commission of ethics would have kicked him out so fast that he wouldn’t have even been able to get his coat on the way out.

As for electroshock: It has been discovered here, so its story is no news to us. It does have some efficacy on certain pathologies but, as all medical procedures it has side effects. As with Ambien i’d have to say they make it probably not worth the try, but then again i’m no doctor.

To wrap things up: Psychiatry and Psychotherapy are different, psychiatrists can recur to psychotherapy but, to quote the article: ”Psychiatric treatment applies a variety of modalities, including medication, psychotherapy and a wide range of other techniques” while ”Psychotherapy is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living.” Psychiatry passes itself off as science because it is, as it also relies on medications which (again, like it or not) do have an effect (positive or negative, that is not the problem, they do SOMETHING, misdiagnosis and/or prescription of the wrong kind of meds is possible in all the fields of medicine). Psychotherapy on the other hand is, as @mattbrowne quoted, more dependent on the bond between the patient and the analyst rather than on the actual therapy.

Why do i oppose the use of one rather than the other? Two reasons: First and foremost, religious people have, generally, no training in discerning mental pathologies and psychological problems (and if they do it’s certainly not because they’re religious authorities), so they don’t really know what the hell they’re trying to cure, and unless they prove me that demons exist and that exorcisms are actually being done only in case of demonic possession i’d like them to stay in their pulpits selling false hope on sundays like they already do thankyouverymuch.

The second reason is the distinct features of the two approaches. Granted that all in all they boil down to bonding with an authority figure, exorcisms still have a HUGE animosity component in their presentation, in their execution and in the whole idea, the whole process antagonizes the “patient” and puts him in a situation of impotence and submission. Which could work in SOME cases but it’s also been proven to be widely counterproductive. You try and help a convicted rapist by antagonizing him, and let’s see where it goes.

P.S. I know i sounded condescending, i was in a really fucking bad mood, i’m sorry if that bothered you, it wasn’t really aimed towards you but to pretty much anyone who crossed my path that day.

@Thammuz: exorcisms still have a HUGE animosity component in their presentation, in their execution and in the whole idea, the whole process antagonizes the “patient” and puts him in a situation of impotence and submission. Which could work in SOME cases but it’s also been proven to be widely counterproductive.

yes. and there you have my opposition to forcing people to go to a nursing home or a mental institution against their will.

You try and help a convicted rapist by antagonizing him, and let’s see where it goes.

they put (some) convicted rapists in homes for the criminally insane, you know.

@Thammuz: Ritalin shouldn’t even be marketable seeing how meth isn’t

yes.

@Thammuz: As for electroshock: It has been discovered here, so its story is no news to us. It does have some efficacy on certain pathologies but, as all medical procedures it has side effects.

putting my personal emotions for a moment (I have seen ECT as they use it “in the field” so I have particularly strong feelings about it) the Wikipedia article you linked to says in the second paragraph that, “ECT on its own does not usually have a sustained benefit”.

and did they bother to factor in the very relevant matter of whether the people who did not claim to have benefit from it have it voluntarily? this would, I imagine make a big difference.

you know, whatever you say about exorcisms, the laying on hands doesn’t cause brain injury. ECT has a number of side effects. and like exorcism in a scientific context, no explains why/how ECT works, to the extent that it works. that flies against your statement that psychiatry has its basis in science.

@Thammuz: First and foremost, religious people have, generally, no training in discerning mental pathologies and psychological problems

from the best of my understanding, they sit down therapists as therapists without a lot of training nowadays. they say “go do it” and they do it and the gulled client treats the therapist like a god. and/or worse, they see themselves as a god. one day just a person, the next the freaking Buddha!

at least other religious (yes, I implicitly referred to psychotherapy as a form or religion) officials usually undertake religious responsibilities gradually. and they do (usually) receive formal training in ethics and morals. I don’t have a great deal of respect for many organized religions. even in the worst case scenario you have to know certain things.

@mattbrowne Essentially you repeated and elaborated upon my previously stated opinion that an exorcism can be therapeutic.

@Ria777: I’m sorry, i WILL sound condescending from this point on. I know i will. And i’m not even sorry, actually.

And there you have my opposition to forcing people to go to a nursing home or a mental institution against their will. Well fucking DUH.
In italy we don’t have mental institutions, by the way, they’ve been shut down in the eighties, particularly because they didn’t do jack to cure the patients. We still have those dedicated to criminally insane people, and even there it’s just to keep them from harming people and trying to cure them IF there’s any chance to, not to give them a paid holiday. As for nursing homes, they’re not mandatory, they’re there for private citizens to make use of their services. If my father should end up needing special care for, i dunno, a fucking lung cancer seeing how he’s been smoking since he was 18, and i should happen to be unable to give him such treatement at home i’ll send him toa nursing home. I’ll not park him there and forget him, i’ll send him there to be treated, and still treat him as a member of my family, i’ll go visit him, i’ll take care of him to the extent that i can, but that’s not something that depends on the goddam nursing home, it depends on the people who use it.

ECT on its own does not usually have a sustained benefit. So fucking what? It has temporary ones, hasn’t it? Is there some rule where a treatement has to be permanent otherwise we automatically stop using it, instead of combining its temporary effect with something that lasts longer? No there bloody well isn’t.

and did they bother to factor in the very relevant matter of whether the people who did not claim to have benefit from it have it voluntarily? this would, I imagine make a big difference. Did they bother? How the fuck should i know? You imagine? I imagine I’m the king of sweden. Your reasoning here presumes a-propos that ECT works only because of the placebo effect. Sorry, find me statistics or don’t insinuate a claim you can’t handle. Besides i really doubt that pumping electricity into a machine that uses electricity to work could really “not do shit.” It’s bound to have some effects. And apparently it has some non permanent effects, according to people who, you know, actually researched the matter on the field, instead of reading books that, as you said, have been ignored.

In fact i’ll open a parentheses here: your whole post there sounded like a conspiracy theory. It seems to you psychiatrists actually earn something from using dangerous treatements on patients to obtain effects that, according to you, are just as easily obtainable via a placebo effect, and in order to do that they had to ignore a quite massive amount of studies that YOU find accurate (From the height of what, i suppose, is NOT a psychology degree or better) despite the fact that such studies are available to anyone.

This reasoning is ludicrous but it also raises questions: what would be the motive for such a scheme? Even if they were hellbent on making money behind people’s backs, why would they use practices that are known to be dangerous and that, at the very least, could give them bad publicity? Why would they not use a harmless placebo effect? Are all psychiatrists evil? are they all dumb? are they all less knowledgeable about their field than someone who not only seems to know nothing about said field but also appears to know little about the scientific method? Are you in possession of some earth shattering truth that has eluded the scientific community for about a century now, that would rehabilitate the studies that other before you have chosen to ignore for some reason? Are you a scientologist?

I’m really out of options here, enlighten me on why you think you have the competence necessary, in a field that is undoubtably difficult to grasp, to bring in such “revolutionary” thoughts all by yourself after better men have failed to do so in the context of the scientific community. Please do, really.

ECT has a number of side effects. So has being punched in the face several times by a fucing priest. In fact thay aren’t SIDE effects, they’re the ONLY effects.
and like exorcism in a scientific context, no explains why/how ECT works, to the extent that it works. that flies against your statement that psychiatry has its basis in science. And the “i know jack shit about science” award goes to Ria777! The scientific method doesn’t impose to know WHY something works or HOW to start exploiting its effects. A catapult works because of several physical laws that the greek didn’t formalize, they still created fucking catapults, though, didn’t they?
I’ll agree that exploiting something without thorough testing is reckless, but this isn’t the case since 30 years of testing is generally considered sufficient for any medical procedure, and if there was anything better availabel they’d have fucking started using it by now.

from the best of my understanding Which doesn’t seem to be much, at this point.
they sit down therapists as therapists without a lot of training nowadays. they say “go do it” and they do it Sure, why not. Nevermind 5 years of university studies to get the diploma that, at least here, is mandatory to be recognised as a psychologist. Nevermind that psychology is one of the toughest study courses here in italy and never fucking mind that psychiatry is a degree that practically requires a master’s in medicine. No fucking training at all.

Either the US has fallen into barbarism or you’re talking out of your ass.

At least other religious (yes, I implicitly referred to psychotherapy as a form or religion) Oh, no! you dared imply something ludicrously idiotic! i’m so fucking scared! you dare what nobody else dares! my god, you’ve beaten me!
officials usually undertake religious responsibilities gradually. and they do (usually) receive formal training in ethics and morals. I don’t have a great deal of respect for many organized religions. even in the worst case scenario you have to know certain things. Well fuck me, that priest who forced a 14 year old authistic boy to barf after punching him repeatedly must’ve been an anomaly on so many levels, huh? Because apparently he not only is batshit, he can fucking tell an authistic child when he sees one and he sees fit to punch him in the face repeatedly to CURE HIM.

Listen, i’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that MAYBE in the US things are really messed up. Let’s just leave it at that because frankly this is a pointless endevour because, when you come out and say that as a general rule psychologists are simply thrown in the deep end of the pond and told to swim, you’re REALLY talking out of your ass. Again, i can’t vouch for the rest of the world but to become a psychologist here it takes much more grey matter than you could ever manage. And even more to become a psychiatrist.

So let’s just leave it at that, and wait for an american to call you out on it, since i don’t have a deep enough knowledge of the american health care system.

@Thammuz: Sure, why not. Nevermind 5 years of university studies to get the diploma that, at least here, is mandatory to be recognised as a psychologist.

I meant therapists, not psychologists and if I had given that misleading impression I would have made that clear. but I mean, what objective proof that they have that they can really help people? they only have the validation of other psychologists. if their clients could vote on who got approved and who didn’t, you’d have a better system.

@Thammuz: ”In italy we don’t have mental institutions, by the way, they’ve been shut down in the eighties, particularly because they didn’t do jack to cure the patients.”

I forgot about the situation in italy. I approve of what has happened in your country.

”ECT on its own does not usually have a sustained benefit. So fucking what?”

when you measure something with a temporary benefit versus permanent side-effects, that hardly seems worth it to me.

anyway, I don’t care if people choose to have ECT willingly. infliction of ECT on unwilling victim bothers me. and this does happen. perhaps not in italy (good for italy), but in other parts of the world.

Are you a scientologist?

hah! they combine a delusional self-serving belief system plus rationalized profit motive. just like psychiatry. I find myself upset and angry that the Church of Scientology has taken up the critique of psychiatry as “their” issue. I want no association with them. they couldn’t go bankrupt fast enough for me.

@Thammuz: * and did they bother to factor in the very relevant matter of whether the people who did not claim to have benefit from it have it voluntarily? this would, I imagine make a big difference.* Did they bother? How the fuck should i know? [...] Your reasoning here presumes a-propos that ECT works only because of the placebo effect.

actually I didn’t mean to say as much. I meant that I can imagine the profoundly upsetting effect of having ECT done to you against your will. (and yes, I know that they use general anesthesia. of course I know.)

@Thammuz: ECT has a number of side effects. So has being punched in the face several times by a fucing priest. In fact thay aren’t SIDE effects, they’re the ONLY effects.

so we have to live a world where we choose between a use of form by religion or use of force by religion. I don’t share your confidence that you can assess a huge body of practices and make a generalization that big.

can you explain how voodoo practitioners get possessed? my explanation works towards explaining it. if voodoo works, why can’t exorcisms?

your whole post there sounded like a conspiracy theory.

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/06/09/harvard-psychiatrists-under-fire-for-drug-company-funding/tab/article/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/health/22nami.html?_r=2

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1717306,00.html

It seems to you psychiatrists actually earn something [...]

not in the main, but individual psychiatrists, sometimes, yeah. Big Pharma certainly reaps the benefits.

you yourself pointed out the danger of Ritalin.

what about tobacco companies peddling cigarettes. evil, but it also happens.

despite the fact that such studies are available to anyone.

if Big Pharma commissions fifty studies to their liking versus one critical ones, which gets noticed more?

Are all psychiatrists evil? are they all dumb?

if you hear 2+2=5 long enough, you do tend to believe it and feel ashamed of questioning it. doesn’t the same apply to religious superstition and political ideologies?

Are you in possession of some earth shattering truth that has eluded the scientific community for about a century now, that would rehabilitate the studies that other before you have chosen to ignore for some reason?

my earth-shattering truth: treating people like human beings helps them (and you). treating them like objects hurts them (and you).

@Ria777 I can only say that one bad personal experience with psychistry does not make an entire profession wrong. I have a brother who was profoundly schizophrenic (meaning hearing voices and seeing hallucinations) from a very young age. If not a mental disorder, what would you call it?

@YARNLADY: I call it hearing voices and seeing things that others don’t see (I wouldn’t say “hallucinations”).

actually I do feel offended that you felt obliged to explain what “schizophrenia” means. after all I have said about psychiatry and the theories I have presented, did you think I needed to have the word defined for me?

(some days I find myself more critical of “schizophrenia” than others, by the way. though I always think of “mental disorder” as meaningless).

about my mistreatment by psychiatry… even if I took my own experience out of mind, I witnessed things which should never happen anywhere in the most prestigious (private, not public, profit-making in fact) mental institution in the country.

I saw a woman whose family had all died in a fire (a real nasty piece of work, too, though pitiful because of it) go catatonic every time the fire alarm went on in the ward. the fire alarm went on frequently because former inmates would call in for bomb threats. no one shielded this from her.

on the same ward lived another woman who had lived in the same little room for years and years, I think. (her family lived in Asia. they would call her on the ward phone.) she developed chronic diarrhea. a group of other inmates, led by the first woman ganged up on her, shoved shit in her face and forced her to use the toilet. (I slept through this by the way. but I know it happened. the matter came up in a ward meeting.)

I saw another woman tied to a mattress and left in her misery because her insurance had run out and they would ship her off to a state mental institution where they would warehouse her.

saw a guard who got off on his power with a fascination for serial murderers (also a devout Catholic) browbeat and bully inmates because he enjoyed it.

multiple sexual harrassment of one girl by the night staff (inferring this last part since I didn’t personally witness it.) male-on-male rape of an inmate by a guard. when the inmate, who had gotten released threatened to do something about it, they sent him a letter which cowed him out of doing anything.

I didn’t detail half of what went on, either. all this in just two stays in two different wards at McLean over seven months. if I had stayed longer (some people spent decades in that place… guess what affect that had on them?) I would have more horror stories.

remember also that I did not go to some backwater institution. I went to a private institution.

took part in an exercise in which the whole group got collectively punished in order to force one boy (a voluntary mute) to speak. (this did not happen at this one institution and it did involve me, but also everyone else in the room.)

@Ria777 I was not ‘defining’ the word, I was describing the symptoms that my brother has, in case you objected to the diagnosis of a psychiatrist. You are way too touchy to continue this discussion.

@Ria777 Man i’m getting tired of this.

I meant therapists Find me one fucking difference, for that matter find me a job description for a “therapist” that has not medical and psychological training in it. If there is a job called “therapist” that doesn’t require any kind of training and puts you to work with mentally ill patients in the US, then thank god i don’t live in the US.

what objective proof that they have that they can really help people? I dunno, what objective proof they have that people actually are ill? if somebody walks in and says “i hear voices” all you have is his word for it. If he says he doesn’t hear them anymore it means that for some reason he doesn’t think he hears them.

I meant that I can imagine the profoundly upsetting effect of having ECT done to you against your will. So is having open heart surgery against your will. It still helps. And before you go out and say “yeah but it’s permanent” it isn’t always permanent and it could kill you in the process, how’s that for a possible side effect?

I don’t share your confidence that you can assess a huge body of practices and make a generalization that big. Nevermind that exorcism is a practice that, here in italy, despite everything the church says, is still widely practiced (not much on an absolute level but still more than it sould be), and that i’ve seen a priest callinf “possessed” a girl for fainting from hunger (she was anorexic at the time, and she fainted a lot). Luckily enough he could do nothing, seeing how her father is a factory worker about three times his size he thought about it twice before forcing his bullshit on her.

can you explain how voodoo practitioners get possessed? Can they prove they’re not bullshitting people/themselves? No. Otherwise VooDoo wouldn’t be a joke.

not in the main, but individual psychiatrists, sometimes, yeah. Big Pharma certainly reaps the benefits. You (country) called this abomination upon you, my friend. You allow for big companies to do whatever the fuck they want, legally bribing politicians in the form of campaign donations. You allow pharmaceutic companies to test medicines at their own expense thus influencing the outcome. It’s your system, not everybody’s. Ritalin has been made legal here in italy, yet most doctors, not being PAID by insurance companies that work hand in hand with pharmaceutical corporations, refuse to prescribe it, in light of the side effects and the fact that it really doesn’t CURE shit, if a kid is hyperactive it doesn’t mean he’s ill, it means he’s god a short attention span. Simply crammming the kid with meth so he’ll be super focused and stop pestering mommy, isn’t an accepted medical procedure.

I call it hearing voices and seeing things that others don’t see And if you think that’s all there is to it i think it’s quite clear that you don’t know jack shit about psychiatry or psychology.
after all I have said about psychiatry and the theories I have presented, did you think I needed to have the word defined for me? After seeing you using “psychotherapy” and “psychiatry” as interchangeable (you could use the checklist above and apply it to exorcism as well. take not especially of points 3, 4 and 5. psychiatry passes itself off as science.), yes i do think you need terms explained to you.

though I always think of “mental disorder” as meaningless Sure, why not, let’s wait until your neighbour hears his dog telling him to kill you. Get out of this fucking fairy land where insane people are just misunderstood, Ria. If you see shit that isn’t there you’re not right, end of story. there’s a reason we’re ableto single outmentally ill patients, and it’s not because we’re mean, we identify them because they’ve actually went BEYOND “a little strange” and reached “full blown cukcoo bananas”

about my mistreatment by psychiatry… even if I took my own experience out of mind, I witnessed things which should never happen anywhere in the most prestigious (private, not public, profit-making in fact) mental institution in the country. Why is that for you “profit making” suddenly means they’re more reliable? It appears that profit making in the rest of the discussion doesn’t make such a good impression. As a matter of fact, it changes shit, but then again it’s odd you’d mention it.

As for your horror stories: i see no reason to think that any of this has happend because of the facility itself. An extablishment that does nothing is an extablishment that should be replaced, this has, again, nothing to do with the nursing homes in general, nor with the practice of psychiatry, it has ALL to do with the people that work in that field and the practices that YOUR system allows, See: I saw another woman tied to a mattress and left in her misery because her insurance had run out. If you didn’t have a private insurance system but a public helath care system like most of europe, where doctors are paid regardless of who you are and where, again hyppocrates’ oath is still worth something, this wouldn’t happen. Stop blaming the fact that crimilan assholes work in a single facility on the whole idea behind the cathegory.

No manual on patient treatement suggests bullying, violence and anal rape, if people do it it’s by their own initiative. So stop fucking treating these experiences as if they were to blame on psychiatry or psychology. They’re to blame on dickery, which isn’t a study subject, it’s a fucking human characteristic.

As i understand you’ve been a warden in some mental institutions. Do you really think that to understand psychiatry and psychology all it takes is to work in a building that has a psych ward? You have no medical training, no psychology and/or psychiatry studies on your CV if not for those books you mentioned, which you have no means to evaluate except by “common sense” which really isn’t a foolproof procedure.

Enroll in a university, follow your classes with an open mind, understand and learn what they’ll teach you and then if you must, criticise, and do it in europe since we’re not biased. Anything said before that is said by someone who has recieved no formal training on the subject, hasn’t practiced and has only seen psychiatry only as a layman, which, sorry, isn’t worth jack.

There’s a reason, again, if it takes 5 years of studies to get there.

@Thammuz: I meant therapists Find me one fucking difference, for that matter find me a job description for a “therapist” that has not medical and psychological training in it.

the training, as I understand it, consists of playing the part of a therapist, of acting like a therapist. if this angers you then don’t attack me. I didn’t create the system and as I said before, I don’t believe in it.

If there is a job called “therapist” that doesn’t require any kind of training and puts you to work with mentally ill patients in the US, then thank god i don’t live in the US.

therapists see all kinds of people.

to get back to the matter of whether they have training, I don’t have a problem with whether or not they have training so much as, do their clients (some of them other therapists) see the therapist as a little god. has the therapist gone through extreme experiences?

most important, it offends me that therapists can go and work in a mental institution without having spent time in the institution as an inmate. I would make it mandatory that they spend time in an institution just like any other inmate, to experience (a little bit) how it feels. same with guards. same with shrinks.

if they decided they didn’t have enough strength to go through it or had too great an ego to accept the blow to their status, then they wouldn’t have what it takes.

@Thammuz: I meant that I can imagine the profoundly upsetting effect of having ECT done to you against your will. So is having open heart surgery against your will. It still helps.

let’s do a thought experiment. you have a heart attack, you have open heart surgery. how wold you feel? resentment? gratitude?

let’s do another. someone thinks you have a demon possessing you and then locks in a room for an hour or two and tries to exorcise you (as per the original subject of this thread). how do you feel?

the fact that the exorcist believes that he has acted for your own good, for your (in shrink terms) “best interest” would not matter to you.

you believe, rightly, that we should not have religious beliefs forced on us. for the same reason, I do not believe in having psychiatry forced on us. (and I think that I could make a good argument for calling psychotherapy a religion, by the way. I know I have already said this.)

@Thammuz: can you explain how voodoo practitioners get possessed? Can they prove they’re not bullshitting people/themselves? No. Otherwise VooDoo wouldn’t be a joke.

you consider it a joke because (I assume) you don’t know about it. you believe that people can hear voices, as earlier mentioned, and see things, as, again, earlier mentioned, right? do they bullshit other people and/or themselves?

@Thammuz: I call it hearing voices and seeing things that others don’t see And if you think that’s all there is to it i think it’s quite clear that you don’t know jack shit about psychiatry or psychology.

just because I won’t use the label doesn’t mean that I don’t understand the label. you don’t have grounds to call me ignorant. wrong maybe, but not ignorant.

@Ria777 I’m back Not using the terms that psychiatrists have come up with is like refusing to call a food made with flour, water, and butter by the name gravy. If you insist on calling it that flour, water and butter stuff we eat it makes conversation difficult. It is a perfect example, because gravy can be made with several different ingredients, but we still recognize it as gravy. The terms that psychiatrists come up with are for the purpose of identifying the behaviors they are describing without repeating the entire litigation of symptoms in every conversation. I can’t imagine why the full list of symptoms would be better than the actual assigned name.

@YARNLADY Loll..I’m back! Sounds like a phrase from one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s films!

@Ria777 I’ll let your comments on the system be, oddly enough i do agree that therapists should undertake therapy themselves. In fact in italy a psychologist has to undertake an analysis cicle himself to be allowed to work. (I’m not sure if it’s mandatory, i do know that most studies won’t hire you if you refuse that clause).

You still fail to give me a job description for these “therapists”. I want more than the training, as I understand it, consists of playing the part of a therapist, of acting like a therapist. and Therapists see all kinds of people. By the way good work with the recursive definition there. “Therapists are trained by playing the part of the therapist.” and cooks are trained by playing that of a cook, what would have been odd was if they were playing the part of a continental trucker during their training.

the fact that the exorcist believes that he has acted for your own good, for your (in shrink terms) “best interest” would not matter to you. Difference: Psychiatrists still have data to base their claims on, exorcists however have jack shit.

for the same reason, I do not believe in having psychiatry forced on us. (and I think that I could make a good argument for calling psychotherapy a religion, by the way. I know I have already said this.) Again, you still use psychiatry and psychotherapy as interchangeable. [removed by Fluther] I’m sorry to reduce to this but i have no other explaiation for such a blatant disregard for the data i provided you.

I understand your parallel between a religious relationship and a psychoterapy, and i already granted you that. I also pointed quite easily out that psychiatry IS NOT PSYCHOTERAPY. Making your point moot. You can blabber on all you want about psychotherapy being a religion, it’s bullshit, but you can, because that’s not the point!
Psychiatry uses meds. Meds whose efficacy you can test. Therapies whose efficacy you can test. That’s as far away from religion as you can possibly get.

you believe that people can hear voices, as earlier mentioned, and see things, as, again, earlier mentioned, right? Yes, what i do not believe is that these voices and things and whatever the fuck else are to be trused to be neither living nor accurate. There’s a reason, again, if not all of us see them and if many of those who have such allucinations don’t agree with eachother on what they see. It’s not like there’s any coherence between hallucinating patients that you culd speculate there actually is something they all see. Halluciantion is a product of the mind. If it was a product of the real world it would be coherent for all those who witness it in the same way my pc is coherent for everyone who sees it.

just because I won’t use the label doesn’t mean that I don’t understand the label. No, it means you’re [removed by Fluther] who thinks that refusing a label (which is just a fucking word) is a radical act of hostility and subversion towards a concept. Just like people who are bilnd don’t want to be called so.

you don’t have grounds to call me ignorant. wrong maybe, but not ignorant. Again, you consider (or at least treat the terms) psychotherapy and psychiatry as interchangeable sinonyms. I do have grounds to call you ignorant. Or at least i did when i first pointed it out, since you apparently didn’t know that, thus making you ignorant, at least in that particula case. Your ignoring it has given me the grounds to call you [removed by Fluther], pretty much on all accounts.

Exorcism sometimes works? First, anecdotes do not make a science. You need real studies. Second, some people are just desperate and rather lonely. If another person takes honest interest in them this will give them hope. Freud found out that talk can help cure people. So whatever exorcists are doing, they pay attention to the person in need. My point simply is, on average solid well-research and well-tested approaches should be preferred.

@Thammuz:

I will get back to the rest of your earlier post late. for now…

“Therapists are trained by playing the part of the therapist.” and cooks are trained by playing that of a cook, what would have been odd was if they were playing the part of a continental trucker during their training.

yes, by playing the part of the therapist. they serve a ritualistic social function.

a cook and a continental trucker have practical functions. they get cook or they haul freight.

a therapist, though, acts as some living representation of Wisdom, or compassion or understanding, whether they have done the work for a year or for ten. or for a month. they don’t even have to have a great deal of insight.

the fact that the exorcist believes that he has acted for your own good, for your (in shrink terms) “best interest” would not matter to you. Difference: Psychiatrists still have data to base their claims on, exorcists however have jack shit.

a couple of responses to this. a) much of the foundation of psychiatry rests on unprovable assertions. the validity of the DSM, for example. the validity of a number of specific “disorders” listed in the DSM. the validity of “disorders” period.

b) many of the practices of psychiatry (such as SSRI’s) don’t check out compared to exercise, say, but the movement of giving out psych meds has acquired such social momentum that scientific proof, at this stage, doesn’t matter.

c) statistics don’t always tell the whole story. if you surveyed the population of north korea 99.999% would say that they had no complaints and adored their Dear Leader. if you compared the merits of destroying brains with neuroleptics and destroying them with ECT, does the difference really matter? it has to do with context.

@Thammuz: I also pointed quite easily out that psychiatry IS NOT PSYCHOTERAPY. Making your point moot. You can blabber on all you want about psychotherapy being a religion, it’s bullshit, but you can, because that’s not the point!

true, okay. psychiatry and psychotherapy do go together and psychiatry does depend on faith to a large degree. it doesn’t have the more ritualistic character of psychotherapy, though, that I will give you.

what counterargument do you have my calling psychotherapy a religion? religions don’t have to have gods or saints. they don’t have to have an element of the supernatural. I say psychotherapy passes the test.

@YARNLADY: like I said, I sometimes accept schizophrenia, sometimes not. the psychiatric idea of schizophrenia has so much dogma attached to it, though. with a situation like your brother’s, I pity him, because this culture has a materialistic bias where if you see things others can’t see, they treat you like a broken robot.

many cultures in this world would have a useful frame of reference and he had the misfortune to get born into a time and place where the people by and large do not understand.

@Thammuz: It’s not like there’s any coherence between hallucinating patients that you culd speculate there actually is something they all see.

well, for starters, how do you know? if they did have a shared reality, how could you tell? a lot of people talk about what they call “influencing devices”. they have consistent themes. I don’t mean that the influencing devices literally exist, I mean that they often seem to inhabit a similar part of psychic space.

Halluciantion is a product of the mind. If it was a product of the real world it would be coherent for all those who witness it in the same way my pc is coherent for everyone who sees it.

as I said, postmodern culture has a materialistic bias. if a subjective impression comes from the mind that does make it unimportance or unreal like a glitch in the robot’s visual auditory and visual field.

if you got together two painters, they’d paint the same landscape two different ways.

@Ria777

You still have to give me a job description for what the fuck a “therapist” is supposed to be. Therapist is a generic term for a HUGE cathegory, like saying “technician”. So quit fucking treating “therapist” as an actual single profession. It only shows that you have no clue what you’re talking about. Until you give me a definition of this “profession” your arguments against “therapists” will be dismissed out of hand as arguments against “orange giraffes named barry” since you’ve defined no attribute for this cathegory.

a) much of the foundation of psychiatry rests on unprovable assertions. the validity of the DSM, for example. the validity of a number of specific “disorders” listed in the DSM. the validity of “disorders” period. Since when has reality started to bend to your desires? If someone sees stuff that ISN’T FUCKING THERE he’s not some suprpowered human being with a sixth sense, he’s a NUT. If you think reality is so up for debate i want you to start blindfolding yourself when you cross the street, because those two giant pink elephants only i can see walking beside you will stop any incoming car.

Stop relativizing beyond your own good. It’s just ridiculous.

b) many of the practices of psychiatry (such as SSRI’s) don’t check out compared to exercise Yeah, because exercise cures depression, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, premature ejaculation and insomnia. How could we miss THAT?

By the way you’re still pulling crap out your ass. You give no fucking source and expect me to accept this blatant bullshit? Please!

c) statistics don’t always tell the whole story. if you surveyed the population of north korea 99.999% would say that they had no complaints and adored their Dear Leader. If the results of psychiatric treatements didn’t influence every fucking body around the patient you would be right. No, you wouldn’t, because in Korea they lie because they’re in a dictatorship, and speaking against a dictator is dangerous, lying about your own mental state has no inherent danger. But you’d be less wrong. Seeing how your behaviour is witnessed by the ones around you, you don’t have to rely on first person testimony to see if a therapy works. Same goes with alcoholics in denial: none of them will tell you that he’s angrier, prone to mood swings and whatnot, their loved ones will tell you though, assuming they give a shit.

psychiatry does depend on faith to a large degree. No it fucking doesn’t. And until you find me a study that says that brain meds don’t do shit (which you won’t find, because you’re WRONG) you can quit repeating this bullshit.

what counterargument do you have my calling psychotherapy a religion? Religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. Show me a psychotherapy book that talks about the purpose of the universe and you’ll have a point. Beofre that you’re pulling shit out of your ass, surprise, surprise.

if they did have a shared reality, how could you tell? By putting two of them in the same fucking room and have them interact? if they see the same things they witness a coherent reality, if not they’re just batshit insane. It doesn’t take a PhD to figure out a coherency test.

as I said, postmodern culture has a materialistic bias. if a subjective impression comes from the mind that does make it unimportance or unreal like a glitch in the robot’s visual auditory and visual field. first and foremost who’s to say that bias hasn’t been aquired for a reason? And secondly, yes, it does make it uninportant because subjective reality is of no use to anyone besides those who percieve it, and even those who do actually can’t have a use for it, because it isn’t fucking there, but that’s another point.

if you got together two painters, they’d paint the same landscape two different ways. Yes, of course, depending on the abilities they have, the colours they have, their realitve positions, but as long as they’re both what we’d call “sane” people they wouldn’t paint a pink elephant wearing a tux named charles in the middle of the landscape unless he was fucking there. See the difference between minor differences and fucking hallucinations yet?

This is my ultimatum: Either you quote me reliable sources behind your argument or we’re done here.
I demand: A definition of the “Therapist” profession, the qualifications needed to apply for the job and the subjects of study needed, plus the areas of competence of a therapist while on duty (what he does, what he does not). With at least one reliable external reference.

A large scale double blind test that proves that antidepressants (SSRI) don’t work.

A large scale statistical study that proves that psychotherapy doesn’t have a success rate higher than exorcisms, bonus points if you find one that proves that psychotherapy actually has a recovery rate that suggests an accidental efficacy (Read: it doesn’t have an effect). Such rate must be below 20% variation between two groups, one recieving psychotherapy and the other not recieving any treatement, to be so. And i’m being generous with that 20%.

If you don’t come up with said data don’t expect me to reply to you any longer.

Good evening.

will get back to some of your statements. for now…

psychiatry does depend on faith to a large degree. No it fucking doesn’t. And until you find me a study that says that brain meds don’t do shit (which you won’t find, because you’re WRONG) you can quit repeating this bullshit.

upthread you can read a series of guidelines for good psychotherapeutic practice. a number of them tend to back up my statement, most of all this one: “the therapist’s strength of belief in the efficacy of the technique is a factor”. (my emphasis.)

if you got together two painters, they’d paint the same landscape two different ways. [...] as long as they’re both what we’d call “sane” people they wouldn’t paint a pink elephant wearing a tux named charles in the middle of the landscape unless he was fucking there. See the difference between minor differences and fucking hallucinations yet?

you distorted the meaning of my statement. you wanted to say that two different people could have different voices and visions, therefore they had no objective reality. if you wanted to get at what I really meant, I said, in effect that one person could see an elephant in a tux and another a blue duck with a cowboy hat and that they could, in effect, have seen the same thing, just differently. and a third person might see nothing.

Ok, that’s it. Don’t bother with the rest of the meaningless replies, you’re not posting the data and you’re repeating the same shit over and over disregarding my earlier posts. I’m done.

upthread you can read a series of guidelines for good psychotherapeutic practice. PSYCHOTHERAPY IS NOT PSYCHIATRY. Are you [removed by Fluther]? For fuck’s sake just say “NANANA I CAN’T HEAR YOU” next time [removed by Fluther]. Read the goddamned definition of both, if you don’t get the difference in the two definitions i posted earlier you’re not worth my time.

I’ll even copy and paste the THREE FUCKING LINES that seem not to get through [removed by Fluther]:

”Psychiatric treatment applies a variety of modalities, including medication, psychotherapy and a wide range of other techniques” while ”Psychotherapy is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living.”
I also put them in bold so you can notice them, i’d put them in bright and shimmering colours too but i don’t think we can on this site. If you can’t tell the difference between these two very simple definitions you’re [removed by Fluther]. There’s no other way to explain it.

if you wanted to get at what I really meant, I said, in effect that one person could see an elephant in a tux and another a blue duck with a cowboy hat and that they could, in effect, have seen the same thing, just differently. I seriously hope so, because if that’s the case this drivel might make sense in your subjective reality. Do you see blue cars instead of people’s faces? do you see huge pterodactyls taking off at the airport?

No, you see faces and airplanes. And it doesn’t matter what YOU see it as, when you represent it, the representation is coherent. It doesn’t matter if all things blue appeared green to you and all things green appeared blue to you, you’d paint a blue lawn and a green sky, but since your perception would be coherent with itself you’d still paint them so that others saw it as coherent as well, since you’d see green paint blue and blue paint green.

If two people describe the same thing as different, and not as in “some details are different” but as “entirely fucking different” as per your example, one of them must be wrong, because if he wasn’t he’d give coherent informations. The output, be it language or image, or sound, would be coherent with the perception of the rest of us because it is, effectively, a way to transpose informations between different point of views that otherwise have no way to communicate. You can’t know what blue i see, but if you say blue we all know it means blue, we all associate the same concept to it. If you see a pink elephant in a tux and you say you see a blue duck with a hat your brain is misfiring at some point, processing the basic concepts into incoherent informations. The same goes for seeing stuff when it isn’t there.

That said, i’m done with you. You’re not wirth my time, i could think about it twice if i see you posting the data i requested and if you aknowledge and, at this point, expose (to be sure you actually get it) the difference between psychiatry and psychotherapy since i’m not here to teach basic sentence comprehension [removed by Fluther].

No, you see faces and airplanes. And it doesn’t matter what YOU see it as, when you represent it, the representation is coherent.

if you took a person who had lived in the Amazon basin all their life, could they see a coherent patten? no, because they wouldn’t have the context. it would seem like a meaningless jumble. and if you took two, would they agree? and how could they explain to the tribespeople back home? you’ve heard the parable of the blind men and the elephant, originally created to try to convey the difficulty of translating mystical experience into language.

not just theory. these problems happen when you try to approach very different states of consciousness. psychiatry tries to reduce these states of consciousness to, as I said before, a malfunctioning robot.

If you see a pink elephant in a tux and you say you see a blue duck with a hat your brain is misfiring at some point, processing the basic concepts into incoherent informations.

you make it sound like a simple visual hallucination. well, people with simple hallucinations don’t get put into mental institutions (usually), though, do they?

you may have it right. but until psychiatrists start acknowledging all possibilities seriously, you just have one model. and one model of a thing cannot describe the thing.

PSYCHOTHERAPY IS NOT PSYCHIATRY.

not 100%, no. but you know when you get let out, they’ll probably say see a therapist. the belief component does factor into psychiatry, as well. when they would not let me out because I “lacked insight” they meant that I did not believe the system could help me, did not believe that psychotherapy could help me (and of course my psychotherapist belonged on my treatment team).

so, earlier you took me to task for implying we lived in a completely subjective reality. well, no, I mean that in the matter of the mind and its sub-set, the emotions and beliefs (which psychiatry supposedly deals with) that subjective experience by definition (where else does thought and feeling originate?) has importance.

now if I think, “I think I have super powers, I can walk through walls” you will encounter resistance if you try. (unless you really do have super powers…) you have confused your subjective experience with objective reality and made a particular kind of error.

if you deny that the subjective experience has any validity even though your job involves a mismatch between subjective and objective experience, you have failed to address the situation. because you have only dealt with one aspect of it, the objective and physical aspect rather than the internal one, by saying “just hallucinations”, the robot has broken, subjective has no meaning, etc.

you guys want to flip a coin?

@Ria777 It’s too bad you weren’t born into our family. We believe in support and love for family members who need it. My parents generation also believed in prayer and ‘laying on of hands’ (not exorcism), and used that for healing. My brother never saw a psychiatrist until he was old enough to choose for himself, then he received the insights he needed to live a full and productive life.

And, let me hasten to add that when people call him crazy, he just laughs and says “Yeah, and I have a card to prove it”.

@YARNLADY: It’s too bad you weren’t born into our family.

thank you lots for saying so. I won’t ramble and turn this into an autobiographical monologue, suffice to say that I take what you say in the spirit intended.

glad to know that your brother ultimately has had a happy life, I gather. I feel very glad that he did get to choose for himself, as well, and I bet that had a lot to do with it.

@BoBo1946: you guys want to flip a coin?

yeah! since I live in a completely subjective reality, I have no chance of losing. it doesn’t matter which side I call! in my reality it will have landed on the side that I called.

wow, I don’t even have the motivation to read all of this… but thanks for the effort guys, haha.

@Ria777 Ok, i’m fucking done. As far as i’m concerned you’re pulling shit out of your ass, you give no sources at all, you keep insulting my intelligence pretending that you don’t get how medical testing works, I’m fucking DONE.

Look up “double blind study” [removed by Fluther], all medicines have to pass it to be put in commerce. You’re [removed by Fluther] who thinks that all it takes to understand a huge field of medicine is enter a building where they pracice it. You’re not worth a second more than i already wasted [removed by Fluther].

I’m officially stopping following here.

ahhh…we have a stalemate!

@RandomMrdan did you start this fight? loll

@BoBo1946 I merely asked a question, haha. And these two kind of took over the discussion and from what I can tell are both trying to write a novel, haha.

@RandomMrdan loll…for sure, and all novels, have plenty of four-letter words…they got that part right!

@RandomMrdan: more of a manifesto than a novel. if you scroll up and read my first couple of posts, though, that actually do a fair job of answering your original question.

[mod says] Personal attacks are not permitted and have been removed via internal edit.