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talkpoliticsThe recent breakdown of a Southern California Christian who attempted to profit from the misery of African children gave some our students food for thought. One imagined him strapped to a gurney ranting against the forces of evil as a kind physician injected him with mind altering substances. Another pictured him in a padded room wearing a straitjacket blabbering on about Satan's plan to cheat him of his pile of gold as he gladly downed brain damaging pharmaceuticals. Although our students were not happy with Jason Russell's business plan, they completely sympathized with his mental distress.
When the topic of medical treatment of mentally deranged patients comes up, some people think of physicians such as Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung. An association with German scientists of the 1930's who treated their victims as laboratory animals comes to mind only to the elite few with the inside skinny on how psychiatry actually operates in the US. Those effete elitists can be easily dismissed as a lunatic fringe who could not find their way around the cranium of a rhesus monkey. They have never severed the corpus callosum of a living victim and probed for differences between hemispheres, so what do they know?
American psychiatrists are not the same as their German counterparts because of at least one essential distinction. Unlike German National Socialist scientists, American psychiatrists obtain the permission of the victim's family before they administer destructive "treatment" in the interest of scientific inquiry. That makes it all okay. A psychiatrist in our network claimed that psychiatrists treat all people equally. One could interpret this as a claim that all psychiatrists conform to egalitarian principles. On the other hand, one could interpret this to imply that psychiatrists treat all of their patients like laboratory animals.
What are your hopes and wishes for Jason Russell? Do you hope that those nice physicians will help him to eliminate enough mental capacity that he can move forward in life as a Christian entrepreneur? Or, do you hope that he survives his hospitalization without an addiction to brain damaging pharmaceuticals?
When the topic of medical treatment of mentally deranged patients comes up, some people think of physicians such as Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung. An association with German scientists of the 1930's who treated their victims as laboratory animals comes to mind only to the elite few with the inside skinny on how psychiatry actually operates in the US. Those effete elitists can be easily dismissed as a lunatic fringe who could not find their way around the cranium of a rhesus monkey. They have never severed the corpus callosum of a living victim and probed for differences between hemispheres, so what do they know?
American psychiatrists are not the same as their German counterparts because of at least one essential distinction. Unlike German National Socialist scientists, American psychiatrists obtain the permission of the victim's family before they administer destructive "treatment" in the interest of scientific inquiry. That makes it all okay. A psychiatrist in our network claimed that psychiatrists treat all people equally. One could interpret this as a claim that all psychiatrists conform to egalitarian principles. On the other hand, one could interpret this to imply that psychiatrists treat all of their patients like laboratory animals.
What are your hopes and wishes for Jason Russell? Do you hope that those nice physicians will help him to eliminate enough mental capacity that he can move forward in life as a Christian entrepreneur? Or, do you hope that he survives his hospitalization without an addiction to brain damaging pharmaceuticals?
(no subject)
Date: 27/3/12 15:39 (UTC)As for childhood trauma, it is very difficult to go through life in America without some form of trauma. The scenes on TV of the situation in Vietnam were pretty traumatic.
(no subject)
Date: 27/3/12 15:48 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 27/3/12 16:12 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 27/3/12 17:16 (UTC)Again, while patients may abuse the treatment, your implication is that these doctors are intentionally trying to cause the patient harm.
(no subject)
Date: 27/3/12 17:40 (UTC)I do not know the names of the drugs with the most deleterious effects. I know of one case where Thorazine caused damage. Long term use of any mind-altering substance is probably not conducive to neural integrity.
One of our students pointed out that general practitioners tend to concentrate more on diet and exercise than do psychiatrists. Perhaps the next generation of reforms will require environmental therapy first, reserving drug therapy as a secondary or emergency-only approach.
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