Intoduction and Apology

I am "Cate68" and I am "Chorn" from Icarus. I am only high average and sometimes I don't always think before I post. I can understand that basics of logic like "straw man" and "ad hominem." I am capable of higher thought if aided and given time to digest information and process it appropriately.

I looked up the word "reification" and it said that this is taking something abstract and attempting to define that something as concrete. I guess that I just wanted some sort of general definition of perhaps what the anti psychiatric community might think that the causes behind or manifestations of what people label as schitzophrenia would be.

The entire struggle--the entire war between psychiatry and anti psychiatry is very very difficult to navigate and to deal with daily.

I know that for me alone, I have some pretty severe problems and I have gotten better but it has taken a lot of work.

My mind works almost entirely by "categorization" most unfortunately but I don't mean to categorize as much as try and learn--try to contain information. But anyway, I just hope that one day, my larger questions will have an answer.

Thank you,

C68

Maybe you are referring to me, because I used the word "reification". I don't bother to read most replies to my comments because I don't like to become enmeshed in relations of negative reciprocity or mutually destructive conflicts consequent to some disagreement, especially when the replies are written by moderators, with the imbalance of power that that implies.

When I used the word "reification", I was simply referring to the fact that schizophrenia is an idea, mistaken for concrete reality. People of a less philosophical disposition, and those invested either emotionally, interpersonally, economically or professionally in this idea, are seemingly incapable of understanding that without an observable physical referent, such as a histopathological process that would take the process of diagnosis out of the realm of subjectivity and anchor it firmly in the realm of the objective, the concept of "schizophrenia" is just one way of framing the issue.

Part of the problem with the concept is, is that it entails the subsumption of a heterogeneous range of experiences and people to a single "explain-all" theory.

One reason why I reject the concept though is because it has been formulated in minds distorted and ravaged by bigotry and self-interest. Whenever a group persecutes another group, that should be taken as a signal to disregard the former's self-serving narratives (although because the true character of the relationship, that of persecutor-persecuted, between the two parties is mythologically concealed, most people are unaware of the persecutory character this relationship, partly out of ignorance, and partly out of complicity), and people labelled "schizophrenics" (like myself) are perhaps the scapegoats du jour of modern society (although supposedly this is just a persecutory delusion), along with other people sufficiently powerless enough, after all, scapegoats are invariably recruited from the ranks of those who lack powerful advocates (bearing in mind that most of the people who claim to be the advocates of the "schizophrenic" patients are actually their tormentors), those against whom the mob is unanimous in its delusional convictions (I use the term delusional in its non-psychiatric sense to refer to something that is not pathological in origin, but something that is the common property of the species, after all, who of us isn't delusional in some way or another? I am not appropriating the language of the oppressors, as some would like to think).

A lot of what is said about "schizophrenics" is just delusional, the kinds of delusions that are particularly intractable because of the delusions of invulnerability to delusion of those who possess them, after all, delusions subsist on the belief that delusions only happen to those other people, the mad, which as I say, only serves to render one more vulnerable to delusional thought process, because one is incapable of identifying the process in anyone other than the supposedly mad, the scapegoat for the lunacy of the herd.

These delusions are reinforced in seeming perpetuity within the community, reinforced in the verbal exchanges between individuals (sometimes ignorantly inheriting and reinforcing the delusions of others, and sometimes with each of the interlocutors sub-consciously or even consciously reinforcing the delusions out of self-interest), also reinforced by the many powerful institutional forces and individuals aligned against the patient, who is hopeless in the face of this overwhelming opposition. Every bit of evidence, refracted through the herd's delusory consciousness, shores up the delusion. Evidence of harm done by psychiatric "treatment" is always misconstrued as evidence of the disease.

Any violence of the patient within the "hospital" is not attributed to the environmental and interpersonal matrix in which such violence is formed, but is seen as proof of the patient's illness. Although this violence is a mere social and psychological reflex, or what I would attribute to the operation of the lex talionis mechanism in human psychology and relationships(lex talionis meaning law of retaliation, mechanism being the right word because of the unthinking way in which people respond to violence, humiliation and abuse mimetically); although violence constitutes a Girardian mimetic contagion on the psychiatric ward (most of it committed by the staff), nevertheless, the patient's unproven illness is blamed, affording another example of the operations of the many delusions that in their totality constitute the grand delusion, the belief in the abstract disease of "schizophrenia".

Cledwyn Bulbs wrote:Maybe you are referring to me, because I used the word "reification". I don't bother to read most replies to my comments because I don't like to become enmeshed in relations of negative reciprocity or mutually destructive conflicts consequent to some disagreement, especially when the replies are written by moderators, with the imbalance of power that that implies.

When I used the word "reification", I was simply referring to the fact that schizophrenia is an idea, mistaken for concrete reality. People of a less philosophical disposition, and those invested either emotionally, interpersonally, economically or professionally in this idea, are seemingly incapable of understanding that without an observable physical referent, such as a histopathological process that would take the process of diagnosis out of the realm of subjectivity and anchor it firmly in the realm of the objective, the concept of "schizophrenia" is just one way of framing the issue.

Great point. It is very similar to the problem you encounter when fighting the system. Even when a member of the system rather it be doctor, law enforcement, or lawyer(judge) acts in a unprofessional manner you have people that value there word more than they should simply because of what these people do for work. Furthermore, way too often there word is final because re-course means fighting the system and most people feel that the system is unbeatable.

This is not to say that it's all delusion. For example, a lot of the suffering associated with this "disease" is true enough, but I think psychiatry lacks the explanatory wherewithal to elucidate this problem. I myself, from sleep deprivation whilst on base amphetamine, know what it is like to have one's faculties impaired to such a degree that I have experienced minatory hallucinations of spiders and lizards crawling up my bed whilst convincing myself that my family is trying to kill me. Yet there are so many reasons why people could entertain such beliefs or convince themselves they have seen such things, and I think, at least more often than not, such experiences or the negative character of such experiences can be imputed to the immediate environment and the wider cultural context, but society isn't interested in looking at the ways in which life is made hell for some people by the way in which we collectively respond to culturally aberrant experiences, expressions and behaviours.

I think in a lot of cases "psychosis" can be explained as a product of sleep deprivation or a nutritional, or can be better understood as one of the psychological ravages of dissonant, internecine interpersonal relationships, and of course the role of trauma is becoming more apparent, and more and more evidence seems to suggest also that the brain bears the impress of traumatic experience (which is of course another variable that has to be factored in when interpreting neuro-imaging studies).

As for the paranoia and delusions of persecution, apart from things like sleep deprivation, what do people expect? Human beings are the most generally aggressive, cruel, malicious, cunning, violent, destructive, power hungry creatures on the planet, and people are surprised why some people are convinced others are out to get them! Ha. The facts are, there ARE people out there to get you. There's gangs of young hooligans, little nazis in embryo; there's psychiatrists who have a monopoly, like other state agents of control, on violence; there's sexual predators; there's an epidemic of violence against children and hate crimes against other powerless groups; there's angry mobs, made up of individuals who come together on the pretext of supporting some football club but are really just looking for some excuse to hurl themselves into a pit of Dionysian abandon; there's the modern urban environment, which is a frightening, oppressive place, there's road rage everywhere, people hurling abuse at bystanders from their car windows, people revving their engines, and much more; people get drunk and lose all inhibitions, attacking each other, shouting at each other, puking on each other; there's cowboy builders and other rogue tradesmen preying on the vulnerable. I could go on! It's a frightening world and suspicion, even paranoia, are inevitable, especially through overexposure to the harsh realities of human and social experience.

-- Wed Sep 18, 2013 8:01 pm --

1013 victim wrote:

Cledwyn Bulbs wrote:Maybe you are referring to me, because I used the word "reification". I don't bother to read most replies to my comments because I don't like to become enmeshed in relations of negative reciprocity or mutually destructive conflicts consequent to some disagreement, especially when the replies are written by moderators, with the imbalance of power that that implies.

When I used the word "reification", I was simply referring to the fact that schizophrenia is an idea, mistaken for concrete reality. People of a less philosophical disposition, and those invested either emotionally, interpersonally, economically or professionally in this idea, are seemingly incapable of understanding that without an observable physical referent, such as a histopathological process that would take the process of diagnosis out of the realm of subjectivity and anchor it firmly in the realm of the objective, the concept of "schizophrenia" is just one way of framing the issue.

Great point. It is very similar to the problem you encounter when fighting the system. Even when a member of the system rather it be doctor, law enforcement, or lawyer(judge) acts in a unprofessional manner you have people that value there word more than they should simply because of what these people do for work. Furthermore, way too often there word is final because re-course means fighting the system and most people feel that the system is unbeatable.

Thank you, exactly my point!

I hope to learn more from you all on this forum and thank you for your time.

Have a great week!

C68