Just a thought...

K, we can all pretty much agree that there are a lot of problems with psychiatry..

BUT, what other means could we employ to help people with mental illness?

I argue that psychiatry is an effective means of dealing with the conditions of modern life, which produce mental illness..

Like, if it weren't for the stresses of modern life, we wouldn't need psychiatry...

Humans are meant to be free...not live in cities, cooped up in stuffy apartments or working in an office all day...that's so unnatural

Ya, we live longer now, but is life more satisfying or in tune with our nature?!

No..

Like what is anxiety? Why do we get anxious? Hmm..maybe the prospect of unemployment makes us anxious? Well, if we all lived on farms and chilled out on the population growth and didn't over use the land we might not be so anxious because we could produce our own food!

Population growth -> increase competition for resources -> mental illness

Psychiatry attributes mental illness to internal factors in the individual.... It has to do this...because if it pointed to our unnatural environments as the cause of mental illness...well...that would necessitate a revolution now wouldn't it?

Psychiatry is conservative.

I totally agree that so-called "mental" illness is not just caused in isolation and that it involves not only the individual sufferer but also his or her total environment. This is another facet psychiatry does not address. Taking a pill won't change the stresses, the cruelty, of the modern world. At best, medication removes our ability to feel emotional responses to that world, working like an anesthetic.

When I lived in Europe some years ago and enjoyed a different culture, I had far fewer problems with depression/bipolar.

Unfortunately I don't think it will be possible for all of us to move back to farm life. Farming has its own stresses and strains, after all. I do agree that immersion in a more natural setting - with lots of bird song, flowers, plants - and without a lot of human-made structures - is a delight and a natural high.

I would begin by making a radical, fundamental change to the educational system. Taking a child's natural energy and stuffing it all inside a classroom for hours with all the stresses of social interaction among kids is most unhealthy. Repeat that by twelve to thirteen years (at least) and you have the recipe for a lot of unhappiness. Schools are essentially babysitters today, since parents must work to make ends meet in the current society we have created for ourselves. What I would dearly love to see is a community effort, in which small units of parents got together and took in hand the education of their children and worked as tutors and supervisors themselves, or hired qualified teachers whose work they could watch and monitor closely to make sure the training they offered was up to par. This system would involve a LOT of experience out in nature learning first hand about the world outside the classroom walls.

-- Mon Jul 25, 2011 1:48 am --

I totally agree that so-called "mental" illness is not just caused in isolation and that it involves not only the individual sufferer but also his or her total environment. This is another facet psychiatry does not address. Taking a pill won't change the stresses, the cruelty, of the modern world. At best, medication removes our ability to feel emotional responses to that world, working like an anesthetic.

When I lived in Europe some years ago and enjoyed a different culture, I had far fewer problems with depression/bipolar.

Unfortunately I don't think it will be possible for all of us to move back to farm life. Farming has its own stresses and strains, after all. I do agree that immersion in a more natural setting - with lots of bird song, flowers, plants - and without a lot of human-made structures - is a delight and a natural high.

I would begin by making a radical, fundamental change to the educational system. Taking a child's natural energy and stuffing it all inside a classroom for hours with all the stresses of social interaction among kids is most unhealthy. Repeat that by twelve to thirteen years (at least) and you have the recipe for a lot of unhappiness. Schools are essentially babysitters today, since parents must work to make ends meet in the current society we have created for ourselves. What I would dearly love to see is a community effort, in which small units of parents got together and took in hand the education of their children and worked as tutors and supervisors themselves, or hired qualified teachers whose work they could watch and monitor closely to make sure the training they offered was up to par. This system would involve a LOT of experience out in nature learning first hand about the world outside the classroom walls.