On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:05:27 -0700 (PDT), chazwin
yahoo.com> wrote:

Very well: tell me how clinical psychiatry DEFINES the wrongness in
human experience and behaviour which in every case it ATTRIBUTES to
a physical or "functional" disorder of the brain. Please take care
to distinguish between cause and effect.

So you're saying that clinical psychiatry does NOT conceptualise
certain aspects of human experience and behaviour in terms of
physical or "functional" disorders of the brain? (This is news to
me.) What then is the reason for appointing only people trained
in anatomy, physiology and so on as the sole relevant authorities
in such matters of experience and behaviour?

Did you even begin to understand the points I was making, before
telling me that I "could not be more wrong"?

JJ can answer for himself. I do not (and I assume he also does
not) belong to some organised religion with fixed dogmas. I do
not know his opinions in detail, nor is there any reason why I
should do so. I mentioned only that we are in broad agreement.
No doubt we differ on many points, as all sane individuals do.
(Of course, he may not be sane.) :-)

You've compared it with what, exactly? I agree with you slightly
in one respect, which is that human society still has much to learn
in this area, and that clinical psychiatry represents an advance on
religious dogma - in some respects. (I won't attempt to state this
any more precisely, at least not until you show more evidence of
understanding of what my opinions actually are. I'm not claiming
to have expressed myself clearly, in this difficult area, but you
don't even seem to be trying to understand my words.)

No, actually, I won't. (Not yet, anyway.)

You have absolutely no fucking right to say that to me! You have
absolutely no fucking idea of the level of suffering and loss I was
so calmly referring to. Don't take my candour and (former!) calmness
as a licence to dismiss the reality of my life. Stick to what you
bloody know.

I haven't just "considered" it, you smug callous asshole!

I have, as I already said, not only met but lived closely with at
least one person who was at least as mad as that. Not my brother
- he has severe brain damage from birth trauma, as it happens, if
you want to engage in a shroud-waving competition as a substitute
for rational argument and basic human respect.

Has anyone told you what has actually gone wrong with your brother's
brain, and what the drugs have done to put right what was wrong?

Let me be a little more clear (although I scarcely see - through
this red mist - why I should bother). I have not said anything to
imply that something has in fact not gone physically wrong with
your brother's brain. In another thread (in which, ideally, this
discussion should be taking place), I agreed with another poster
that Alzheimer's disease, for example, is an actual disease of the
brain. There ARE diseases of the brain: some (a few) of which are
known (in exactly the same way as diseases of other organs of the
human body are known), and some (necessarily) which nobody has yet
managed to pin down in scientific terms, but which are nevertheless
real, and cause acute suffering and waste (as in your brother's
case). That is not the point at issue.

As so many people so thoughtlessly do, you take any questioning of
medical psychiatry as a denial that there is anything real in* the
notion of "mental illness". I thought I had made it plain that that
is not my position at all. I still remember my outrage at hearing
of Thomas Szasz's views when he visited my university on a lecture
tour (I didn't bother to attend!); and when I did eventually read
one of his books (I've read several), I agreed strongly with half
of what he said, and disagreed violently with the other half. (He
is very lucid, which at least makes it possible to know exactly
what he is saying, and to take issue with it.) And although I don't
know you personally, I promise that you cannot imagine the depth of
my anger at the "antipsychiatrists" who so cruelly let me and many
other people down, when I turned to them because of the failure of
the NHS to help me (and my liking for some of the writings of R. D.
Laing).

*(Or perhaps more accurately, behind it.)

Although I am very angry with the cavalier way you have chosen to
respond to me, I have done you the service of reading carefully
what you wrote about your brother, and I do not want to dismiss
either his suffering or yours, in the way that you have callously
dismissed mine.

If we can get over this clash, I would sincerely like to know
whether you think that the drug treatment given to your brother
has restored something like his real personality, or whether it
has cut across his real personality, as well as his "illness".

(I don't even know how to express this clearly, but we can work
on that. I put the word "illness" in quotes because the physical
malfunctioning of his brain is a hypothesis, not an observed fact.
This is, emphatically, NOT meant to question the "reality" of his
experience and behaviour, but rather to open up the general nature
of that "reality" to question, without begging any questions about
it. If that's not clear, I will try to explain further, although
I cannot promise clarity, about something that no-one seems to be
clear about!)

I would also like, if possible, to know what your brother himself
thinks about his treatment, insofar as you feel able to paraphrase
his thoughts and feelings.