changeling188
Member
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2019
- Messages
- 59
I was today reflecting on the newfound cultural obsession with mental health awareness in which people are told to be completely open and forthcoming about their pain and suffering with the rest of the world and embark on a journey of self-development which, in advanced economies, is facilitated by government/insurance remunerated or privately paid-for treatments by psychotherapists, counsellors and psychiatrists.
Mental health awareness as an ideology also seeks to diversify the types of people who disclose this information and turn men or Indigenous people for example into spokespersons for their movement by encouraging their community to adopt the same types of behaviour. For example breaking down the supposed stereotype that men don't talk about their feelings and are ashamed to present to others with sadness or grief. Obviously within this there is some truth, but I feel as though now we have reached this point of critical mass where we have achieved mental health awareness, and yet people are not mentally more well for it and there are now just different more specific gender expressions of sadness like new age sensitive guys. Like we basically have subcultures of mental illness now...
It has come to be accepted with almost no scrutiny that these practices are helpful and result in a more developed sense of self or a higher state of consciousness. There are numerous anecdotal reports of how seeing psychologists changed an individual's life and set them free from their psychological shackles to achieve true happiness and so on. I'm not denying this is useful to many people and I get that the renewing of the mind and the breaking of old habits is generative to a more flexible, reactive way of living which aligns with what I believe in. But just on the level of observation, it hasn't actually done anything but advertise and spread misery.
In every advanced economy, scripts for anti-depressants and anti-psychotics rise rapidly and by observation the psychological issues of people are becoming more acute and beginning earlier. None of this turmoil is ever accurately accounted for with statistics but collectively from where i stand the impression is that over the last 10 years especially, life has become far less enjoyable and far less fulfilling for a far greater number of people. More and more degrading and disturbing means of coping with these problems are presenting themselves, and being disseminated across media platforms.
This will seem obvious to many people I'm sure.
This issue is so broad and complex and relates to so many factors it seems impossible to condense my frustrations into well-defined points but i thought i would list some off:
- the denial that advances in technology have hugely exacerbated mental problems
- the refusal to opt out of these technologies
- use of technology has become mandatory for children in primary school and high school, and the option to opt-out becomes more and more remote
- use of technology now required to work and participate in civilian life
- the grievances that people present to psychotherapists with seem to be more and more vague, and despite tangible improvements in quality of life or the achievement of success many people still struggle to find meaning or fulfilment in life
- decades of 'progress' for women resulted in a failed sexual revolution where women were encouraged to delay reproduction for career advancement so generational age gaps grow larger and tri-generational families are less common
- the same sexual revolution saw the normalisation of divorce, promiscuity, transient romantic and sexual relations, the pill, male non-commitment to relationships with women, father absenteeism and many other degenerations in how men and women interacted with one another leading to the next point:
- destruction of the unit of the nuclear family, which shielded the individual from the dizzying changes of the world around them
- all social progress disguising massive economic inequalities and the increased disappearance of a middle class capable of achieving the dreams of their parents or grandparents like home ownership
- the cultural tirade against men and masculinity more recently, period. the confusion men experience regarding their role in society and how they relate to other men and to women.
- feminisation of health culture and diet
- diminished outdoors culture and sense of adventure
+ issues related to toxicity, metabolic health that RP forum users would be aware of. Chiefly the war on cholesterol, saturated fat and sugar i believe to be an enormous factor in widespread intellectual decline, mass docility and a culture of anti-intellectualism as well as the deconstruction of western civilisation in critical cultures taught in universities. For example, the emphasis on critique of visual arts using frameworks of morality and not beauty.
Issues more specific to psychology and psychiatry:
- SSRI anti-depressants, period.
- the lack of specificity of clinical approach in modern psychology, catch-all approaches and the lack of intellectual rigour required to become a psychologist or counsellor.
- anti-philosophical and overly broad, overly shallow medical education provided to doctors and psychiatrists, lack of historical scope in their skillset or knowledge
- the lack of spirituality, mysticism, cosmic or poetic thinking in modern psychology that was at least present in times when Freudian or Jungian psychoanalysis was the predominant working theorem
- the distance enforced by the clinician/patient relationship, in which the role once occupied by a priest, grandparent, parent, sibling, friend, animal or environment becomes an enforced power-dynamic where no matter how close one may feel to the professional, they remain a stranger and assist in a professional capacity as opposed to someone with an actual stake in your wellbeing or your quality of life.
- reframing of psychologically normal and abnormal behaviour is just a more humane articulation of the ideology of insane asylums, lobotomies, sterilisations or witch-hunts
- institutional coercion framed as encouragement to attend these treatments for people in the criminal justice system, and the role these sessions play in how these people are processed by that system for example their successful participation in these programmes is looked upon favourably regarding their probation or release so there is an issue of manufactured consent to the treatments in the first place
- pre-diseasing by telling people mental illness is genetic or hereditary
- creation of a constant state of trauma by refusing to let people move on from negative experiences by demanding them to constantly focus on uncovering new layers of that experience. this is a common testimony of people who are recovered alcoholics is that they might not have drank for five years yet still refer to themselves as a recovering alcoholic. or the belief that mental illnesses never go away or aren't curable
possibly my main frustration: the transformation of language and vocabulary around how we talk about psychic issues or emotions to a very standardised, scientific system. Rather than discuss sadness in terms of actual personal experience distinct from disease, all these problems are now integrated within a linguistic framework that identifies and codifies disordered behaviours. The obvious contradiction being that so many of these overlap that someone could, on an off day, be diagnosed with several mental illnesses based on the presentation of at least the defined number of observed or described symptoms of that illness.
Most notable is how relationships and interpersonal circumstances are described so frequently as 'toxic' or 'abusive', the first word being quite dramatic and vague and the second having once been defined in a clear objective way as physical violence has expanded to encompass more and more vague displays of perceived aggression or hostility.
My issue with this approach, other than that is comes off as completely insincere and patronising, is that the entire emphasis is placed on the individual to undergo a process of transformation and change their attitude, their behaviour, their reactions and to adapt to the scenario they are presented with when what that scenario is is often a much larger and more sinister cultural phenomenon that cannot be individualised.
Not to mention, the issue that this entire approach rests on the supposed reliability of language and oral communication in the realms of problem solving and providing a therapeutic experience. Of course there are art therapies and somatic therapies but these are mostly an in-patient offering or an exception to the rule.
These issues have been systematised and enclosed within a pseudo-scientific framework seems to have distracted people from the obvious conclusion that many of these problems seem to have similar origins, whether that is a shared metabolic state of illness, a reaction to a sociocultural situation or a need to self-identify or create a distinction of the ego within the boredom and blandness of life.
And I'll do the bad faith reading and say that from what I can see mental illness has become competitive. I've known people who insist on having access to electroshock treatment because they are convinced that their depression is so severe that only this will work. I've seen that basically every two years among young people there is a new mental disorder that is on the uptake among people. Each has a particular tonal allure like depression comes across culturally as a very romantic, melancholic, cinematic experience. more recently borderline personality disorder and autism. The rapid increase of the description of ex lovers as narcissists or even the offhand usage of terms like sociopath.
Would just be keen to hear some insight from people in other countries or feelings about this! I find that being young I feel so suffocated by the over-saturation of these attitudes and beliefs about mental illness and the western exceptionalism of psychological experience in general but I'm also not convinced that stoicism or traditionalism is a meaningful alternative because it seems dogmatic in the other direction which is the avoidance of sensitivity and emotional vulnerability in favour of the power of denial and discipline to avoid gazing into the abyss. Or if anyone has any resources about this topic I'd love to see it! It is also concerning that the tax-payer is the one who ultimately foots the bill for this cultural creep, as at least here in Australia the government subsidises ten sessions of counselling as well as psychiatric consultations, in-hospital psychiatric treatments, psychiatric medicines are on a pharmaceutical benefit scheme etc. Basically it's very cheap to access all of these services and relatively easy.
And before anyone says it: i'm not depressed or apocalyptic nor do i feel like the world is doomed. and i don't need to cheer up because i feel fine and i have better mental wellbeing than most people from what i can see. I'm just putting into words a phenomenon that's all around me that I deal with daily because it has infected the very language people use to communicate and understand each other with. It concerns me that there is very often no alternative presented to a person who is suffering and in need of specific, individualised care and support from someone who truly cares about their wellbeing and it disturbs me that there is so little public criticism or discussion concerning the approaches and techniques of people in these professions or the efficacy of the approach to begin with. It seems that if anything were to be suspect of being a conspiracy or a global reset it would be the mass psychological reprogramming of a population?
Selected quotes from The Mass Psychology of Misery by John Zerxan
- Therapy is a key ritual of our prevailing psychological religion and a vigorously growing one. The American Psychiatric Association’s membership jumped from 27,355 in 1983 to 36,223 by the end of the ’80s, and in 1989 a record 22 million visited psychiatrists or other therapists covered to at least some extent by health insurance plans. Considering that only a small minority of those who practice the estimated 500 varieties of psychotherapy are psychiatrists or otherwise health insurance-recognized, even these figures do not capture the magnitude of therapy’s shadow world.
- Philip Rieff termed psychoanalysis “yet another method of learning how to endure the loneliness produced by culture,” which is a good enough way to introduce the artificial situation and relationship of therapy, a peculiarly distanced. circumscribed and asymmetrical affair. Most of the time, one person talks and the other listens. The client almost always talks about himself and the therapist almost never does. The therapist scrupulously eschews social contact with clients. another reminder to the latter that they have not been talking to a friend, along with the strict time limits enclosing a space divorced from everyday reality. Similarly, the purely contractual nature of the therapeutic connection in itself guarantees that all therapy inevitably reproduces alienated society. To deal with alienation via a relationship paid for b the hour is to overlook the congruence of therapist and prostitute as regards the traits just enumerated.
- Gramsci defined “intellectual” as the “functionary in charge of consent,” a formulation which also fits the role of therapist. By leading others to concentrate their ‘desiring energy outside the social territory,” as Guattari put it, he thereby manipulates them into accepting the constraints of society. By failing to challenge the social categories within which clients have organized their experiences, the therapist strengthens the hold of those categories. He tries, typically, to focus clients away from stories about work and into the so-called “real” areas-personal life and childhood.
- Psychological health, as a function of therapy, is largely an educational procedure. The project is that of a shared system: the client is led to acceptance of the therapist’s basic assumptions and metaphysics. Francois Roustang, in Psychoanalysis Never Lets Go (1983), wondered why a therapeutic method whose “explicit aim is the liberation of forces with a view toward being capable ‘of enjoyment and efficiency’ (Freud) so often ends in alienation either...because the treatment turns out to be interminable, or...(the client) adopts the manner of speech and thought, the theses as well as the prejudices of psychoanalysis.”
- Ever since Hans Lysenko’s short but famous article of 1952, “The Effects of Psychotherapy,” countless other studies have validated his finding: “Persons given intensive and prolonged psychotherapy are no better off than those in matched control groups given no treatment over the same time interval.” On the other hand, there is no doubt that therapy or counseling does make many people feel better, regardless of specific results. This anomaly must be due to the fact that consumers of therapy believe they have been cared for, comforted, listened to. In a society growing ever Colder, this is no small thing. It is also true that the Psychological Society conditions its subjects into blaming themselves and that those who most feel they need therapy tend to be those most easily exploited: the loneliest, most insecure nervous, depressed, etc. It is easy to state the old dictum, “Natura sanat, medicus curat” (Nature heals, doctors/counselors/therapists treat); but where is the natural in the hyper-estranged world of pain and isolation we find ourselves in? And yet there is no getting around the imperative to remake the world. If therapy is to heal, make whole, what other possibility is there but to transform this world, which would of course also constitute a de-therapizing of society. It is clearly in this spirit that the Situationist International declared in 1963, “Sooner or later the S.I. must define itself as a therapeutic.”
Mental health awareness as an ideology also seeks to diversify the types of people who disclose this information and turn men or Indigenous people for example into spokespersons for their movement by encouraging their community to adopt the same types of behaviour. For example breaking down the supposed stereotype that men don't talk about their feelings and are ashamed to present to others with sadness or grief. Obviously within this there is some truth, but I feel as though now we have reached this point of critical mass where we have achieved mental health awareness, and yet people are not mentally more well for it and there are now just different more specific gender expressions of sadness like new age sensitive guys. Like we basically have subcultures of mental illness now...
It has come to be accepted with almost no scrutiny that these practices are helpful and result in a more developed sense of self or a higher state of consciousness. There are numerous anecdotal reports of how seeing psychologists changed an individual's life and set them free from their psychological shackles to achieve true happiness and so on. I'm not denying this is useful to many people and I get that the renewing of the mind and the breaking of old habits is generative to a more flexible, reactive way of living which aligns with what I believe in. But just on the level of observation, it hasn't actually done anything but advertise and spread misery.
In every advanced economy, scripts for anti-depressants and anti-psychotics rise rapidly and by observation the psychological issues of people are becoming more acute and beginning earlier. None of this turmoil is ever accurately accounted for with statistics but collectively from where i stand the impression is that over the last 10 years especially, life has become far less enjoyable and far less fulfilling for a far greater number of people. More and more degrading and disturbing means of coping with these problems are presenting themselves, and being disseminated across media platforms.
This will seem obvious to many people I'm sure.
This issue is so broad and complex and relates to so many factors it seems impossible to condense my frustrations into well-defined points but i thought i would list some off:
- the denial that advances in technology have hugely exacerbated mental problems
- the refusal to opt out of these technologies
- use of technology has become mandatory for children in primary school and high school, and the option to opt-out becomes more and more remote
- use of technology now required to work and participate in civilian life
- the grievances that people present to psychotherapists with seem to be more and more vague, and despite tangible improvements in quality of life or the achievement of success many people still struggle to find meaning or fulfilment in life
- decades of 'progress' for women resulted in a failed sexual revolution where women were encouraged to delay reproduction for career advancement so generational age gaps grow larger and tri-generational families are less common
- the same sexual revolution saw the normalisation of divorce, promiscuity, transient romantic and sexual relations, the pill, male non-commitment to relationships with women, father absenteeism and many other degenerations in how men and women interacted with one another leading to the next point:
- destruction of the unit of the nuclear family, which shielded the individual from the dizzying changes of the world around them
- all social progress disguising massive economic inequalities and the increased disappearance of a middle class capable of achieving the dreams of their parents or grandparents like home ownership
- the cultural tirade against men and masculinity more recently, period. the confusion men experience regarding their role in society and how they relate to other men and to women.
- feminisation of health culture and diet
- diminished outdoors culture and sense of adventure
+ issues related to toxicity, metabolic health that RP forum users would be aware of. Chiefly the war on cholesterol, saturated fat and sugar i believe to be an enormous factor in widespread intellectual decline, mass docility and a culture of anti-intellectualism as well as the deconstruction of western civilisation in critical cultures taught in universities. For example, the emphasis on critique of visual arts using frameworks of morality and not beauty.
Issues more specific to psychology and psychiatry:
- SSRI anti-depressants, period.
- the lack of specificity of clinical approach in modern psychology, catch-all approaches and the lack of intellectual rigour required to become a psychologist or counsellor.
- anti-philosophical and overly broad, overly shallow medical education provided to doctors and psychiatrists, lack of historical scope in their skillset or knowledge
- the lack of spirituality, mysticism, cosmic or poetic thinking in modern psychology that was at least present in times when Freudian or Jungian psychoanalysis was the predominant working theorem
- the distance enforced by the clinician/patient relationship, in which the role once occupied by a priest, grandparent, parent, sibling, friend, animal or environment becomes an enforced power-dynamic where no matter how close one may feel to the professional, they remain a stranger and assist in a professional capacity as opposed to someone with an actual stake in your wellbeing or your quality of life.
- reframing of psychologically normal and abnormal behaviour is just a more humane articulation of the ideology of insane asylums, lobotomies, sterilisations or witch-hunts
- institutional coercion framed as encouragement to attend these treatments for people in the criminal justice system, and the role these sessions play in how these people are processed by that system for example their successful participation in these programmes is looked upon favourably regarding their probation or release so there is an issue of manufactured consent to the treatments in the first place
- pre-diseasing by telling people mental illness is genetic or hereditary
- creation of a constant state of trauma by refusing to let people move on from negative experiences by demanding them to constantly focus on uncovering new layers of that experience. this is a common testimony of people who are recovered alcoholics is that they might not have drank for five years yet still refer to themselves as a recovering alcoholic. or the belief that mental illnesses never go away or aren't curable
possibly my main frustration: the transformation of language and vocabulary around how we talk about psychic issues or emotions to a very standardised, scientific system. Rather than discuss sadness in terms of actual personal experience distinct from disease, all these problems are now integrated within a linguistic framework that identifies and codifies disordered behaviours. The obvious contradiction being that so many of these overlap that someone could, on an off day, be diagnosed with several mental illnesses based on the presentation of at least the defined number of observed or described symptoms of that illness.
Most notable is how relationships and interpersonal circumstances are described so frequently as 'toxic' or 'abusive', the first word being quite dramatic and vague and the second having once been defined in a clear objective way as physical violence has expanded to encompass more and more vague displays of perceived aggression or hostility.
My issue with this approach, other than that is comes off as completely insincere and patronising, is that the entire emphasis is placed on the individual to undergo a process of transformation and change their attitude, their behaviour, their reactions and to adapt to the scenario they are presented with when what that scenario is is often a much larger and more sinister cultural phenomenon that cannot be individualised.
Not to mention, the issue that this entire approach rests on the supposed reliability of language and oral communication in the realms of problem solving and providing a therapeutic experience. Of course there are art therapies and somatic therapies but these are mostly an in-patient offering or an exception to the rule.
These issues have been systematised and enclosed within a pseudo-scientific framework seems to have distracted people from the obvious conclusion that many of these problems seem to have similar origins, whether that is a shared metabolic state of illness, a reaction to a sociocultural situation or a need to self-identify or create a distinction of the ego within the boredom and blandness of life.
And I'll do the bad faith reading and say that from what I can see mental illness has become competitive. I've known people who insist on having access to electroshock treatment because they are convinced that their depression is so severe that only this will work. I've seen that basically every two years among young people there is a new mental disorder that is on the uptake among people. Each has a particular tonal allure like depression comes across culturally as a very romantic, melancholic, cinematic experience. more recently borderline personality disorder and autism. The rapid increase of the description of ex lovers as narcissists or even the offhand usage of terms like sociopath.
Would just be keen to hear some insight from people in other countries or feelings about this! I find that being young I feel so suffocated by the over-saturation of these attitudes and beliefs about mental illness and the western exceptionalism of psychological experience in general but I'm also not convinced that stoicism or traditionalism is a meaningful alternative because it seems dogmatic in the other direction which is the avoidance of sensitivity and emotional vulnerability in favour of the power of denial and discipline to avoid gazing into the abyss. Or if anyone has any resources about this topic I'd love to see it! It is also concerning that the tax-payer is the one who ultimately foots the bill for this cultural creep, as at least here in Australia the government subsidises ten sessions of counselling as well as psychiatric consultations, in-hospital psychiatric treatments, psychiatric medicines are on a pharmaceutical benefit scheme etc. Basically it's very cheap to access all of these services and relatively easy.
And before anyone says it: i'm not depressed or apocalyptic nor do i feel like the world is doomed. and i don't need to cheer up because i feel fine and i have better mental wellbeing than most people from what i can see. I'm just putting into words a phenomenon that's all around me that I deal with daily because it has infected the very language people use to communicate and understand each other with. It concerns me that there is very often no alternative presented to a person who is suffering and in need of specific, individualised care and support from someone who truly cares about their wellbeing and it disturbs me that there is so little public criticism or discussion concerning the approaches and techniques of people in these professions or the efficacy of the approach to begin with. It seems that if anything were to be suspect of being a conspiracy or a global reset it would be the mass psychological reprogramming of a population?
Selected quotes from The Mass Psychology of Misery by John Zerxan
- Therapy is a key ritual of our prevailing psychological religion and a vigorously growing one. The American Psychiatric Association’s membership jumped from 27,355 in 1983 to 36,223 by the end of the ’80s, and in 1989 a record 22 million visited psychiatrists or other therapists covered to at least some extent by health insurance plans. Considering that only a small minority of those who practice the estimated 500 varieties of psychotherapy are psychiatrists or otherwise health insurance-recognized, even these figures do not capture the magnitude of therapy’s shadow world.
- Philip Rieff termed psychoanalysis “yet another method of learning how to endure the loneliness produced by culture,” which is a good enough way to introduce the artificial situation and relationship of therapy, a peculiarly distanced. circumscribed and asymmetrical affair. Most of the time, one person talks and the other listens. The client almost always talks about himself and the therapist almost never does. The therapist scrupulously eschews social contact with clients. another reminder to the latter that they have not been talking to a friend, along with the strict time limits enclosing a space divorced from everyday reality. Similarly, the purely contractual nature of the therapeutic connection in itself guarantees that all therapy inevitably reproduces alienated society. To deal with alienation via a relationship paid for b the hour is to overlook the congruence of therapist and prostitute as regards the traits just enumerated.
- Gramsci defined “intellectual” as the “functionary in charge of consent,” a formulation which also fits the role of therapist. By leading others to concentrate their ‘desiring energy outside the social territory,” as Guattari put it, he thereby manipulates them into accepting the constraints of society. By failing to challenge the social categories within which clients have organized their experiences, the therapist strengthens the hold of those categories. He tries, typically, to focus clients away from stories about work and into the so-called “real” areas-personal life and childhood.
- Psychological health, as a function of therapy, is largely an educational procedure. The project is that of a shared system: the client is led to acceptance of the therapist’s basic assumptions and metaphysics. Francois Roustang, in Psychoanalysis Never Lets Go (1983), wondered why a therapeutic method whose “explicit aim is the liberation of forces with a view toward being capable ‘of enjoyment and efficiency’ (Freud) so often ends in alienation either...because the treatment turns out to be interminable, or...(the client) adopts the manner of speech and thought, the theses as well as the prejudices of psychoanalysis.”
- Ever since Hans Lysenko’s short but famous article of 1952, “The Effects of Psychotherapy,” countless other studies have validated his finding: “Persons given intensive and prolonged psychotherapy are no better off than those in matched control groups given no treatment over the same time interval.” On the other hand, there is no doubt that therapy or counseling does make many people feel better, regardless of specific results. This anomaly must be due to the fact that consumers of therapy believe they have been cared for, comforted, listened to. In a society growing ever Colder, this is no small thing. It is also true that the Psychological Society conditions its subjects into blaming themselves and that those who most feel they need therapy tend to be those most easily exploited: the loneliest, most insecure nervous, depressed, etc. It is easy to state the old dictum, “Natura sanat, medicus curat” (Nature heals, doctors/counselors/therapists treat); but where is the natural in the hyper-estranged world of pain and isolation we find ourselves in? And yet there is no getting around the imperative to remake the world. If therapy is to heal, make whole, what other possibility is there but to transform this world, which would of course also constitute a de-therapizing of society. It is clearly in this spirit that the Situationist International declared in 1963, “Sooner or later the S.I. must define itself as a therapeutic.”