Psychiatrist Dr. Arthur Perace (L), talking with a schizophrenic patient depressed & withdrawn sitting beside his ward bed, at Wayne County Hosp. Detroit, MI. May 1956. Photo Al Fenn
Adam Curtis describes this history in the first and second episodes of The Trap. In 1973 David Rosenhan staged what was later known as the Rosenhan experiment. Rosenhan and his friends went to 12 psychiatric hospitals in five states. They all were instructed to report “hearing noises” but otherwise act absolutely normal. Every single one was admitted, diagnosed with disorders and given drugs. What’s worse, they were not allowed to discharge from the hospitals till all agreed with the diagnoses. Rosenhan described this scandal to the press. After this story was reported in the press Psychiatric hospitals challenged David Rosenhan to send them more fakes. David agreed and the hospitals promptly discovered a large number of the mental imposters. David Rosenhan then announced that he actually never send anyone. So the hospital were turning away the “real psychiatric patients”. This experiment cast a shadow on the entire discipline. The human factor was questioned.
At the end of the 70s, as a response to the professional challenge and especially with the advent of computers, questionnaires and surveys were sent to hundreds of thousands of people, to determine the mental state of the nation, any human judgment was removed. New disorders are invented at that time, including ADHD, OCD, PDS (various personality disorders), panic disorders, etc. To the astonishment of everyone involved in the surveys, over 50% could be classified as suffering from some of the disorders.
The recognition and the discovered massive scale of problem required drugs. The pharmaceutical companies spent the 80s developing drugs such as Prozac, etc. The ideal model of the “human touch” personalized Psychiatric profession was no longer possible on the scale of the epidemic and the Psychiatry stripped off the “human factor” switched to medicating, on the scale unheard in history. While in the CCCP hundreds of dissidents where forcibly incarcerated into the Psychiatric prisons, in America millions of people were processed through the medication machines with the efficiency of the Auschwitz.
The human despair and sadness became depression. A child’s isolation and loneliness in the sterile suburbia, the anxiety in the face of divorce, the boredom and indoctrination in school, all of it reclassified as ADHD and the gateway to Ritalin. The thrust and the goal was to distribute the blame away from the dysfunctional civilization and onto the people, to confuse the cause and the effect, to reward the docile emotional numbness and induce the emotional numbness on people who refuse to submit to the machine of sameness. This approach and the drugs quickly spread globally. Welcome to the new brave world.
Hmmm, this is a pretty crazy post…
Psychiatrist with an emotionally disturbed student, in front of paintings by emotionally disturbed students at special school. November 1957. NY, NY. Photo by Fritz Goro
Photos licensed for personal non-commercial use only by LIFE
Hypothetically if an Israeli needs a kidney, a registered organ donor or even a relatives of an registered organ donor will have the priority for a transplant. A move perhaps targeting the hareidim that use and even occasionally traffic in organs but are prohitbited from donating the organs by the religious law – BBC.
This is an amazing story. A man assumed to be in coma after an accident in Belgium lost control of his body and his abilities to express himself but his brain was fully functional all along. He could only move his eyes but was unable to respond to any questions even though his was fully conscious. Witnessed being diagnosed and assumed to be in coma but was unable to signal that he was awake for 23 years. Now he has been given a typing pad and he is able to type and communicate with the pad. The doctor said there are many patients who are assumed to be in coma but have a functional brain.
“Asked how he passed the time for 23 years, he said: “I meditated – I dreamt myself away.”
I want to glimpse the dreams, can a yogi do that? The story and video in the Times.
Simon Baron-Cohen (Sacha’s brother) writes in the NYT on the proposed inclusion of Aspergers diagnosis in general Autism – The Short Life of a Diagnosis:
“So what should we do about Asperger syndrome? Although originally described in German in 1944, the first article about it in English was published in 1981, and Asperger syndrome made it only into the fourth version of the manual, in 1994. That is, the international medical community took 50 years to acknowledge it. In the last decade thousands of people have been given the diagnosis. Seen through this historical lens, it seems a very short time frame to be considering removing Asperger syndrome from the manual.”
And here is the most interesting admission that psychiatry knows nothing about the causes of any of the disorders and just goes about guessing based on the infinite range of symptoms:
“Part of the reason the diagnostic manual can move the boundaries and add or remove “mental disorders” so easily is that it focuses on surface appearances or behavior (symptoms) and is silent about causes. Symptoms can be arranged into groups in many ways, and there is no single right way to cluster them. Psychiatry is not at the stage of other branches of medicine, where a diagnostic category depends on a known biological mechanism. An example of where this does occur is Down syndrome, where surface appearances are irrelevant. Instead the cause — an extra copy of Chromosome 21 — is the sole determinant to obtain a diagnosis. Psychiatry, in contrast, does not yet have any diagnostic blood tests with which to reveal a biological mechanism.”
So here is what I propose, why name a condition after some 1944 Nazi? Since you already admitted that there is an infinite range of symptoms, than give diagnosis based the name of an individual patient. Like this nut case has a case of Shemtovatis, this one has case of advanced Schneersonatis, this one suffers from McCarthyism or something, you get the idea. Everyone is crazy in his or her own special way. Problem solved.
Finally it’s been clinically proven that a man with half a brain and no emotional apparatus is the happiest creature on earth. There is a paper about a man named Roger from Iowa who lost most of his “limbic system” due to a rare viral lesion, neuroskeptic describes it.
“Limbic system” is an old, vague, but still popular term for a collection of brain structures located deep in the centre of the brain … It’s often thought of as the “primitive”, “emotional” part of the brain, and there is some truth to this. Roger’s limbic system was profoundly damaged on both sides; on the right side, the lesion included the whole temporal lobe and most of the ventral prefrontal cortex as well.”
Remarkably Roger is functional, although he is unable to remember anything that happed since the loss 28 years ago. From the paper:
“He has virtually no episodic memories for any events that have transpired over the past three decades. For example, he has no recollection of 9/11, and when shown pictures of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center he often responds with bewilderment, speculating that Russia must be attacking America.”
Neuroskeptic writes:
“His IQ is above average; his speech and language abilities are excellent; his vision and hearing are normal, although he has no sense of taste or smell. His short term (working) memory, attention, and reasoning abilities are unimpaired. His motor abilities are fine – he is reportedly an excellent bowler – and he is able to improve motor skills through practice. And his recall of things which happened before the infection is largely preserved, although the few years just before the infection are partially lost.”
But most interestingly Roger is actually always happy:
“Roger appears remarkably unconcerned by his condition. He hardly ever complains and, in general, shows little worry for anything in life. Both of his parents and his sister fervently claim that “Roger is always happy,” an observation that is consistent with our own impression. Moreover, based on his family’s report, Roger is paradoxically happier now than he was before his brain damage. … His premorbid disposition of being somewhat reserved and introverted has shifted to being outgoing and extroverted…
Most conversations with Roger involve animated speech that is replete with prosody, gesture, and, often times, laughing. He readily displays signs of positive emotion including happiness, amusement, interest, and excitement. As previously noted, Roger’s positive mood has remained essentially unchanged over nearly three decades.”
Before I go into this story, can you really make up the first and the last names, unbelievable!? Some doctors speculate that Caster Semenya is not a hermaphrodite but likely has a AIS or Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.
In other words Caster Semenya is genetic male with XY chrmozomes but has external female genitalia. Dr. Mark Porter explains in the Times:
“Gender should be determined at the point of fertilisation. All ova carry an X chromosome, while only half of male sperm carry an X, the rest carrying a Y chromosome. If an X-carrying sperm reaches the ovum first, the resulting child will be XX and female. If a Y chromosome wins the race, the child will be XY and a boy. But it is not that simple.
The default gender for all developing babies is female and the Y chromosome alters this by increasing production of male hormones (androgens), which masculinise the child — the ovaries migrate through the abdominal wall to become the testes, the labia fuse to form the scrotum, the clitoris grows to become the penis and the child becomes a boy. But what if things don’t go to plan?
Several medical conditions can blur the boundaries between male and female, but perhaps the most graphic example is Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), where the embryo carries male chromosomes (XY) but develops into a child that is outwardly female.
It all starts off well. The Y chromosome turns the default female ovaries into androgen-producing testes, but the rest of the embryonic tissues don’t respond to the hormones and continue along the female path. The result is often an outwardly female baby but with male chromosomes and internal testes instead of ovaries.
She — for that is how the child is perceived and brought up — will not start to stand out until puberty. Although she looks like a girl in all ways (including breasts), she is a male internally, so “she” has testes instead of ovaries, no womb and is missing the upper two thirds of the vagina. So she will have no periods, can never conceive and may have difficulty with sexual intercourse.”
Now really interesting fact is that androgynous women who were genetic males, presumably the case of Caster Semenya, cleared to compete with women in the Olympics.
The Since of Sports blog published the diagrams:
“The diagram [above] summarizes the results from the Olympic Games from 1972 up to 1996, before the IOC stoppped genetic screening of athletes. What you are seeing is the number of female athletes who “failed” the genetic test which looks for the presence of a gene (called SRY) that is normally found on the Y-chromosome (in other words, these are women with a Y-chromosome). Of particular interest is the 1996 Olympics, where 8 women were identified as “genetic males”, but all 8 were allowed to compete. These 8 would have presented with the same results as Caster Semenya supposedly has – no uterus, no ovaries, and (possibly) internal testes.”
They got some balls in Atlanta and Albertville. If you are a woman athlete how does it make you feel to compete against a man with a vagina?
3 German soldiers, each of whom lost a leg in combat, exercise w. medicine balls at an amputee rehabilitation facility w. their physical therapists. 1942
In curating Hugo Jaeger I am only interested in photos that don’t fit the mold. ►►►read more
Neuroskeptic quotes an important survey on the doubling use of antidepressants in the last decade in the USA, specifically between 1996 and 2005. I find some of the (conservative) figures astounding but not unexpected:
- 13.4% females vs males 6.7% are on antidepressants
- 15.5% of people between 50 and 64, this means every 6th person in that age bracket is smoking “prozac”
- 12.0% of whites (every 8th whitie is dope) versus 5% backs and hispanics
- 22% of unemployed, holy smokes!
- The % of antidepressant users also using an antipsychotic drug rose from 5.5% to 8.9%
What are the cultural and philosophical implications? While this society is happy to shove this phenomenon under the carper, wouldn’t one argue that this is much bigger that the global warming? Could massive genetic mutation be far behind and new prozac resistant humanoids emerge? What impact does this have of the American creativity and the arts? This is not a PC subject because anyone who touches this is bound to upset 50 people he or she knows personally, but as Neuroskeptic writes there, shouldn’t somebody study this?
Turns out there is an urban legend amongst dentists that redheads need more anesthesia not to feel pain. The researches decided to see if there is any basis and the conclusion is that redheads indeed feel more pain. There is a NYT Bogs post – The Pain of Being a Redhead:
“Researchers believe redheads are more sensitive to pain because of a mutation in a gene that affects hair color. In people with brown, black and blond hair, the gene, for the melanocortin-1 receptor, produces melanin. But a mutation in the MC1R gene results in the production of a substance called pheomelanin that results in red hair and fair skin.
The MC1R gene belongs to a family of receptors that include pain receptors in the brain, and as a result, a mutation in the gene appears to influence the body’s sensitivity to pain.”
The article is not clear but one is to assume that this mutation is only in females? If readheads feel more pain shouldn’t they by definition feel more pleasure? I guess another urban legend is true as well…
via mindhacks
The NYT has an article on several upcoming movies and books about and with Aspersers characters – Asperger’s Syndrome, on Screen and in Life. The article links to the health guide and the following symptoms:
- Abnormal nonverbal communication such as problems with eye contact, facial expressions, body postures, or gestures
- Being singled out by other children as “weird” or “strange”
- Failure to develop peer relationships
- Inability to return social or emotional feelings
- Inflexibility about specific routines or rituals
- Lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people
- Markedly impaired expression of pleasure in other people’s happiness
- Preoccupation with parts of whole objects
- Repetitive behaviors, including repetitive self-injurious behavior
- Repetitive finger flapping, twisting, or whole body movements
- Unusually intense preoccupation with narrow areas of interest such as obsession with train schedules, phone books, or collections of objects
Here is what I don’t understand. It is not that people with Aspergers are misunderstood in the contemporary culture; rather the narrow focus savants defined the modern culture as we know it. Many of the Aspergers still dominate at the highest levels. Did you ever ask why this culture is averse to the eye contact, discourages emotional openness, makes people with developed emotional palate feel awkward? But of course the rules have been set by the Aaspergers mafia, they wrote the laws, pushed the boundaries of science and did what they could to make sure everyone feels just as numb as they are; they made it the norm.
There is an illuminating article that traces the history of Dostoyevsky’s epilepsy. Not that there has to be a medical connection to Dostoyevsky’s intensity but it certainly helps in understanding the man, his father and his ecstasy – Neuro Philosophy – Diagnosing Dostoyevsky’s epilepsy:
“Dostoyevsky’s father died in 1839, but the circumstances surrounding his death are by no means certain. According to one account, he was murdered by his own serfs, who restrained him during one of his drunken rages and poured vodka down his throat until he drowned. Another account holds that he died of natural causes, and that a neighbour invented the story of his murder so that he might buy the Dostoyevsky estate at a low price. Regardless, neurologists and scholars of the Slavic language and literature are in agreement that Freud’s diagnosis of “hystero-epilepsy” was wrong. They cannot, however, agree on exactly when it was that Dostoyevsky’s seizures began. Some believe that they began in Dostoyevsky’s childhood, with the first seizure taking place in 1831, when Dostoyevsky was 9 years old, while others claim they began in his teens or early adulthood. Dostoyesky himself stated that his seizures began one Easter night during his exile in western Siberia. He had been arrested on April 23rd, 1849, for his involvement with the Petrashevsky circle, a group of liberal intellectuals. After his arrest, Dostoyevsky was subjected to a mock execution, as a form of psychological torture. Subsequently, he was convicted of political offences against the Russian state, and taken to Semipalatinsk prison in Omsk; some researchers have suggested that the trauma of the mock execution is what triggered his epilepsy.”
And here is an amazing description of an epileptic attack as told by Dostoyevsky to his friend on Easter night while in exile in Siberia:
“The air was filled with a big noise and I tried to move. I felt the heaven was going down upon the earth, and that it had engulfed me. I have really touched God. He came into me myself; yes, God exists, I cried, You all, healthy people, have no idea what joy that joy is which we epileptics experience the second before a seizure. Mahomet, in his Koran, said he had seen Paradise and had gone into it. All these stupid clever men are quite sure that he was a liar and a charlatan. But no, he did not lie, he really had been in Paradise during an attack of epilepsy; he was a victim of this disease as I am. I do not know whether this joy lasts for seconds or hours or months, but believe me, I would not exchange it for all the delights of this world.”
