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Mental Disorders

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Mr. Wynand

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The following is a string of my thought. Keep in mind I did not edit at all, and I know little on the subject. Let me know what you think:

If a child is "out of control", then does any kind of uncontrollable behavior mean it is okay to medicate him? In what situations are drugs okay? In which are they not? Does having something wrong with you constitute the use of drugs? What is the principle behind the use of drugs? If a child is merely a nuisance, or is the test if he is a constant threat to the life, liberty, and property of himself or others? A "normal" child will not make the same intentional or negligent mistake more than a few times, but a "problem" child will act without remorse for his injurious actions. Therefore, is it moral too make medication to the misfit, like prison for the criminal?   

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This is a medical question. If it is to the benefit of a child's well being and development to medicate him, then it should be done. Otherwise, no.

And establishing whether a drug is or not to the benefit of children with various problems is the job of specialists, who study the various conditions and examine the child.

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The following is a string of my thought. Keep in mind I did not edit at all, and I know little on the subject. Let me know what you think:

If a child is "out of control", then does any kind of uncontrollable behavior mean it is okay to medicate him? In what situations are drugs okay? In which are they not? Does having something wrong with you constitute the use of drugs? What is the principle behind the use of drugs? If a child is merely a nuisance, or is the test if he is a constant threat to the life, liberty, and property of himself or others? A "normal" child will not make the same intentional or negligent mistake more than a few times, but a "problem" child will act without remorse for his injurious actions. Therefore, is it moral too make medication to the misfit, like prison for the criminal?   

The question is not so difficult with a child as their parents have gaurdianship over their well-being and therefore have the right to choose to medicate.

The trickier question arises with adults. In many countries it is legal to force drugs on adults w/mental illnesses. In the US it is only legal in extreme cases.

In this (right or wrong) a child has far fewer rights and others can choose to medicate them for just about any misbehavior imaginable.\

With adults they must have proven they pose a serious risk to themselves or others. Even then, generally they cannot be forced on medication long term- generally only as long as they can be forcibly institutionalized.

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The question is not so difficult with a child as their parents have gaurdianship over their well-being and therefore have the right to choose to medicate.

The trickier question arises with adults. In many countries it is legal to force drugs on adults w/mental illnesses. In the US it is only legal in extreme cases.

In this (right or wrong) a child has far fewer rights and others can choose to medicate them for just about any misbehavior imaginable.\

With adults they must have proven they pose a serious risk to themselves or others. Even then, generally they cannot be forced on medication long term- generally only as long as they can be forcibly institutionalized.

I should note that I am talking about what is legal, not sure if your question pertains to the legal or moral aspects.

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Well what about a lobotomy? That nearly destroys a human's ability to think. Is this moral in anyway?

While I fall firmly in the anti-lobotomy camp it is good to recognize that there are varying degrees and different kinds of lobotomies and they have varying levels of detriment.

If I recall the name correctly a man named Howard Dully went to college & received a degree only later to find out he'd had a partial lobotomy at the age of twelve. He then wrote a memoir.

Lobotomies were developed at a time when the only medications available for extreme mental illness were hard seditives. For all purposes a chemical lobotomy.. albeit much less permenent than surgical. Like many other primitive treatments shocking now, but sometimes the only option in that era. The real abuse could be seen not in that lobotomies were perfromed, but in the approval process in which persons with less than honorable motives could use abuse their gaurdianship.

Partial lobotomies were performed soemtimes completely seperate from mental illness. I don't know the name of the procedure offhand but in the earlier 1900s a kind of lobotomy was used to rid patients of chronic crippling pain (generally war wounds and amputees). With mixed results of course.

Again, not defending the practice but wanting to clarify some misconceptions.

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Like many other primitive treatments shocking now, but sometimes the only option in that era.

Literally shocking... Since studying writers and mental illnesses, alcoholism, etc. I came across the Electroconvulsive Therapy that would be performed on patients experiencing severe depression. It's still performed today, but I do not know how similir the experiences are of the patients today, as those of yesterdays, like reading about Hemingway, and my dear Syliva Plath, their accounts of what happened to them because of the therapy, got to me, esp. when Sylvia's first one wasn't done the way it should have been supposedly. As an aside, I have reason to think her actual suicide had something to do with the medication, parnate, combined with other things I can pretty much establish (secondhand accounts mainly) that she was probably taking during that time to, including her Nescafe (instant coffee), some alcohol, and probably sleeping medication, along with major life crisis, and not eating properly at all, I can bet. All, a bad bad combo to begin with, but I'd love to do a study of that, but I am not an academic scholar, very very far from it, so I'm majorly limited. That combo and situation gave birth to one HELL of a work, her Ariel, collection of poetry, but may very well have giving her death, too. ;)

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Metaphorical illnesses require metaphorical treatments administered by metaphorical doctors to metaphorical patients.

Sorry, I don't know what you mean by "metaphorical" in this context.

A great deal of mental illness is organic brain chemistry imbalances and just as "real" as any other physical illness.

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This is a medical question. If it is to the benefit of a child's well being and development to medicate him, then it should be done. Otherwise, no.

And establishing whether a drug is or not to the benefit of children with various problems is the job of specialists, who study the various conditions and examine the child.

This is as wrong-headed as applying the same train of logic to economics. Let me rephrase your quote so you can see this clearly:

"This is an economic question. If it is to the benefit of the society's well being and development to regulate it, then it should be done. Otherwise, no.

And establishing whether a regulation is not to the benefit of societies with various problems is the job of economists, who study the various economic conditions and theories."

All throughout history, doctors have been practicing quackery and inflicting it upon innocent children. And ignorant parents hand over their children to the quacks just because they feel like "something" needs to be done. See: lobotomies, genital mutilation, widespread use of AHDH medications, etc. All of this assumes that the infant/child has no rights or protections whatsoever and is effectively a piece of property that can be treated in nearly any manner whatsoever until the age of 18. Anyone who takes this stance (that humans can be property) has absolutely no understanding of the rights of the individual and should not claim any association whatsoever with Objectivism.

QuoVadis, defending the practice of BRAIN MUTILATION just because there were no "alternative treatments" available at the time is shockingly stupid. Lobotomies always have been, in nearly all cases whatsoever, a horrifically bad idea. And yet there were some twistedly idiotic doctors who supported this practice to "treat" anything from promiscuity in teenage girls to hyperactivity in young boys, just as recently as a few decades ago. Jake_Ellison, perhaps this will dispel your naive viewpoint that the medical profession is some bulwark of rationality that is so infallible as to be granted the right to supersede the wishes of the patient (read: victim).

Edited by SuperMetroid
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QuoVadis, defending the practice of BRAIN MUTILATION just because there were no "alternative treatments" available at the time is shockingly stupid. Lobotomies always have been, in nearly all cases whatsoever, a horrifically bad idea. And yet there were some twistedly idiotic doctors who supported this practice to "treat" anything from promiscuity in teenage girls to hyperactivity in young boys, just as recently as a few decades ago. Jake_Ellison, perhaps this will dispel your naive viewpoint that the medical profession is some bulwark of rationality that is so infallible as to be granted the right to supersede the wishes of the patient (read: victim).

Your attack, based on either an incomplete reading of, or deliberate misinterpretation of my post is far more shockingly stupid.

I stated not once but TWICE that I do not condone the practice but wanted to clarify any misconceptions about the practice as there is not only one kind of lobotomy and there were myriad reasons given for performing them.

"Lobotomies always have been, in nearly all cases whatsoever, a horrifically bad idea."

If you really had the courage of what you were saying you wouldn't have had to qualify your statement in this manner.

Nearly all is not all.

Your argument here:

" supported this practice to "treat" anything from promiscuity in teenage girls to hyperactivity in young boys, just as recently as a few decades ago"

I addressed in my statement, noting that the most problematic aspect of lobotomies overall was the ability of persons with less than noble motives and/or less than complete or accurate information to permenantly destroy another person. The statement about "only option" was made in reference to my statement following after about a specific kind of lobotmoy performed on persons who were already mutilated to the point of unendurable pain. The operation was intended to kill the pain receptors in that case. A horrific option, yes- but the pervasive christian norm at the time didn't allow for mercy killing or suicide.

Barbaric, yes?

So was performing amputations with handsaws on people while they were awake without painkillers or proper hygiene.

At yet, at dark points in our history, they were in fact all that was available.

To point out some value neutral information is not to condone it, and it certainly isn't shockingly stupid to try to understand the past.

In the future, if a post angers you so much, I suggest you reread it lest you look a fool.

Edited by QuoVadis
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This is as wrong-headed as applying the same train of logic to economics. Let me rephrase your quote so you can see this clearly:

"This is an economic question. If it is to the benefit of the society's well being and development to regulate it, then it should be done. Otherwise, no.

And establishing whether a regulation is not to the benefit of societies with various problems is the job of economists, who study the various economic conditions and theories."

Fallacy of false analogy.

All throughout history, doctors have been practicing quackery and inflicting it upon innocent children.

Fallacy of composition.

All of this assumes that the infant/child has no rights or protections whatsoever and is effectively a piece of property that can be treated in nearly any manner whatsoever until the age of 18. Anyone who takes this stance (that humans can be property) has absolutely no understanding of the rights of the individual and should not claim any association whatsoever with Objectivism.

Straw Man fallacy.

Jake_Ellison, perhaps this will dispel your naive viewpoint that the medical profession is some bulwark of rationality that is so infallible as to be granted the right to supersede the wishes of the patient (read: victim).

Right. I can't think of anything else to add, until you decide to make some logical arguments. I of course stand by my previous post entirely, you haven't given me a single reason not to. The fact that you disagree strongly enough to launch into a diatribe is not a reason, and on this forum it's not likely to ever be confused with one.

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Fallacy of false analogy.

Fallacy of composition.

Straw Man fallacy.

Right. I can't think of anything else to add, until you decide to make some logical arguments. I of course stand by my previous post entirely, you haven't given me a single reason not to. The fact that you disagree strongly enough to launch into a diatribe is not a reason, and on this forum it's not likely to ever be confused with one.

Excellent response... Not enough people are actually willing to simply point out the fallacies and leave it at that.. but really, that's all you need to do. Once you've pointed out that someone's logic is faulty then the discussion is over.. either change your reasoning or give up

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Sorry, I don't know what you mean by "metaphorical" in this context.

A great deal of mental illness is organic brain chemistry imbalances and just as "real" as any other physical illness.

"In 1931 Robert Frost (1874-1963) delivered a lecture at Amherst College with the unexciting title "Education by Poetry." It is a profound meditation on, and warning about, uses and abuses of metaphor. Long before I "discovered" the vast errors hidden from us by the metaphor of mental illness, Frost wrote:

'Health is another good word. And that is the metaphor Freudianism trades on, mental health. And the first thing we know, it has us all in up to the top knot.... What I am pointing out is that unless you are at home in the metaphor, unless you have had your proper poetical education in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere. Because you are not at ease with figurative values: you don't know the metaphor in its strength and its weakness. You don't know how far you may expect to ride it and when it may break down with you. You are not safe with science; you are not safe in history.... They don't know what they may safely like in the libraries and galleries. They don't know how to judge an editorial when they see one. They don't know when they are being fooled by a metaphor, an analogy, a parable. And metaphor is, of course, what we are talking about. Education by poetry is education by metaphor.'

Paraphrasing that phrase, I suggest that education by psychiatry is education by and with mendacity, a thesis I have maintained for more than half a century." "The Therapeutic State ~ Mendacity by Metaphor" by Thomas Szasz, MD (PDF)

Ayn Rand:

Emotions

Psychology

Behaviorism

Dr. Hurd:

"The Most Overlooked Cause of Emotional Problems"

"For the Mind There is no Passive Cure"

Dr. Thomas Szasz - a sampling from his online articles, "Szasz Materials":

"Is Mental Illness a Disease?"

"Mental Disorders Are Not Diseases"

"Mental Illness: Sickness or Status?"

"Mental Illness as Brain Disease: A Brief History Lesson"

"Treatments Without Diseases"

"Mental illness: psychiatry's phlogiston"

"With Friends Like These, Pity America's Kids"

"Public Schools as Drug Delivery Systems"

"Affirmative Chemical Action"

"The Therapeutic State: The Tyranny of Pharmacracy (PDF)"

"The Therapeutic State ~ Psychiatry Versus Liberty" (PDF)

"The Cure of Souls in the Therapeutic State"

With Obamacare, get ready for the increased rise of the Therapeutic State and it's medicalization of ethics.

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