A recent and retrograde step

Show me the Shakespeare play or the Renaissance essay that mentions pseudo-medical terms like "OCD" "PTSD" "paranoia" "depression" "psychosis" "neurosis" and others like them?
For that matter, show me the Ancient Greek play that mentions terms like these!
Show me a post-Enlightenment, pre-1850s work that does!

There is of course not one!

This wasn't because they went "undiagnosed" or hadn't been discovered; but because they did not exist then, do not exist now and cannot logically ever exist!

No behavior or misbehavior is a disease or can be a disease. That's not what diseases are!
The medicalization of everyday life is a recent and retrograde development!

In fact, whilst the human condition does not and cannot change as the Renaissance humanists believed - our culture has since then imensely degraded in some ways; and a greater understanding of human behaviour is probably gained by experiencing Shakespeare than by psychiatry text books!

I am sure there are young folk doing Literature A-Level or Bac at the same time as Psychology A-Level or Bac.
The contrast is probably quite stark between the two.
Between amazing literature from most of history before the last century or so that IN NO WAY mentions "mental illness" in the case of the Literature A-Level; and then between the Psychology one which is probably full of more recent and often more drab writings that most likely go on about NOTHING BUT so-called "Mental Illness" or "Mental Disorder".

The Nobel Prize for Mutilation, 1949.

The Nobel Prize for Mutilation, 1949.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Mutilation 1949

The award that this man won in 1949 needs to be rescinded in the name of human decency and for the dignity of the science of Medicine.

To be clear and conciliatory once again, what is left of "mental illness" as an ideology and what is left of "Psychiatry" as a discipline - and they are going through a final spurt of life - need to distance themselves very clearly, and differentiate themselves very clearly, from the most glaring crimes and abuses of what has gone before in their name.

The award above was made at a different time from ours. We need to be clear about what the differences are. For example, before W.W.2 and Nazism in the earlier part of the previous century, ideas like "eugenics" had a far more widespread currency within Medicine and culture in general.

We can thank our defeat of Nazism for having the effect of putting an end to this tendency and others like it.

Fully establishing human rights and freedoms for all would be a tribute to those who fought Fascism/Nazism.
It would be realizing the vision of people like Sir Winston Churchill who fought the war and sustained its aftermath, with the open hope for and the open belief in a better world to come here on our tiny planet.

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A POST SCRIPTUM -

I personally have a great deal of respect for Nobel Prizes and there very noble intentions and founder.

I don't think there is really any precedent for rescinding any Nobel Prizes in any discipline. The above is definitely a case for setting that precedent.

And while we are on the subject of the Nobel Prizes - the entire prize for "Economics"  - the most recently instituted in 1969 - should be rescinded since there is no discipline nor science to award the Prize for. :) 
"Economics is Politics".

"O.C.D." OBVIOUSLY COMPLETE DOGSHIT!

"O.C.D." - OBVIOUSLY COMPLETE DOGSHIT! 

Last night on Radio 4 there was a long charitable appeal for a people with an "illness" that they "suffered" from - sometimes for years - called "O.C.D."

This illness - "OCD" - simply does not exist.

It is a scandal that Radio 4 uses its highly reputable charity slot for propagating a LIE and a DECEIT.

All we are dealing with are thort patterns and behaviors.

Seeing these as an illness is worse than any illness.

This is a SELF-PERPETUATING and SELF-CREATING FAKE ILLNESS.

Supposed illnesses like these are often exaggerated aspects of HUMAN NATURE.

The consequences of believing in non-illnesses like these are potentially catastrofic.

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"Psychiatry" of all kinds is intellectual DOGSHIT that needs to be cleaned up very, very badly.

At present the society we have makes scupltures out of this dogshit rather than cleaning it up!

In fact our society has it pipelined in to every part of our culture.

I am fed up with feeling like the only intellectual to point out this obvious reality ! 

A society free from prejudice?

A society free from prejudice?

A society free from prejudice is impossible until it is free from Psychiatry.

Psychiatry IS prejudice, oppression and injustice writ large.

"Neurosis" and its related term "Psychosis" are NON-SCIENTIFIC, FAKE terms.

"Neurosis" and its related term "Psychosis" are NON-SCIENTIFIC, FAKE terms.


Both are FAKE terms.

Both terms come from around the same period - the late 1800s. Both were used by Freud and Freudians.

"Psychosis" is ultimately a fake way of saying you disapprove or diagree with someone's beliefs or thorts. Ostensibly it means a "break with reality". Well - how does this exclude a simple mistake? And who defines "reality"?
Beliefs aren't illnesses. And cannot be.

"Neurosis" is a way of saying that you disapprove of someone's thorts or feelings and that you believe that has something to do with their nerves - though you have never examined their physical nerves.
In fact as I have said before "Neurosis" has NOTHING to do with the nerves and is not supposed to!
"Worrisome" is another way of saying "neurotic" - and no more precise in ANY type of discourse.


Also - I will repeat that "a nervous breakdown" is a FAKE TERM.

IF it means "a life crisis" and has NOTHING OBSERVABLY related to the nervous system then it is a misleading, fake term.


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It is time to tidy up our entire global culture - into which terminology like this has been spilled.
Like after a horrendous oil tanker disaster, which happened around 1900! :)

The point is these are supposedly scientific terms - and yet are not.
That means that the task of finding more accurate ways of describing our problems is vital.