Yet, another collection of thoughts that hunt me these days…
I was wondering how I was going to get through the night last Christmas, and then I started reading about pain and pleasure on Wikipedia.
I bumped on some quotations from Thomas Szasz that I hope to just be cropped wrongly because the idea does not coincide with my own on pain and pleasure. However, that is not necessarily a bad thing since I don’t know much about the subject other than what my intuition and logic dictates which is probably wrong.
On the other hand, Szasz wrote about how “mental illnesses” do not exist because they are in fact cause by a physical damage to the brain which makes them “physical illnesses”. And the rest are not ilnesses and cannot be cured like, say a flu, with medicaments, I mean. Now this is an idea that I’ve been having for years with no one to validate it, except Oliver Sacks maybe. So, thank you Thomas Szasz. 😁
“(…)being wrong can be dangerous, but being right, when society regards the majority’s falsehood as truth, could be fatal.”
“Persons said to have mental diseases, on the other hand, have reasons for their actions that must be understood; they cannot be treated or cured by drugs or other medical interventions, but may be helped to help themselves overcome the obstacles they face.” [Ain’t nobody got time for that, I know 😕]
“(…) just as physical laws are relativistic with respect to mass, so psychological laws are relativistic with respect to social conditions.”
“Since all systems of classification are made by people, it is necessary to be aware of who has made the rules and for what purpose. If we fail to take this precaution, we run the risk of remaining unaware of the precise rules we follow, or worse, of mistaking the product of a strategic classification for a “naturally occurring” event.”
“As soon as people have more money than they need for whatever they consider the necessities of life, they expect to be happy. And since most people still will not be happy, some will use some of their money to seek happiness through psychotherapy. From this point of view, the social function of psychotherapy is similar not only to that of religion, but also to that of alcohol, tobacco, cosmetics, and various recreational activities.”
“(…) while the physician’s task is to diagnose and treat disease, the psychoanalyst’s is to foster a selfreflective attitude in the patient toward his own body signs (and other “symptoms”), to facilitate their translation into ordinary language. This process of translation, although easy to describe in the abstract, is in practice often a very difficult undertaking. It constitutes, in my opinion, the core of what has been so mistakenly and misleadingly labeled “psychoanalytic treatment” and “cure.””
“Because so-called psychiatric problems have to do with difficulties which are, by their very nature, concrete human experiences, presentational symbolism lends itself readily to the expression of such problems. Human beings do not suffer from Oedipus complexes, sexual frustration, or pentup anger, as abstractions; they suffer from their specific relationships with parents, mates, children, employers, and so forth.”
“In the family, and in other small groups, individuals often foster stupidity and dependency in others—for example, parents in children, husbands in wives or vice versa—in order to enhance their own self-esteem and security.”
‘This effect is further enhanced by the basic human tendency for persons to identify with those with whom they interact. Hence, each slave is a potential master, and each master a potential slave. It is extremely important to keep this in mind and to avoid the misleading contrast between the psychology of the oppressed and that of the oppressor. Instead, the similar orientation of each should be contrasted with the orientation of the person who wants to be neither slave nor master—but only his fellowman’s equal.”
The best part is that when talking about this with some of my friends, I found out they feel the same. Unfortunately, some observed first hand how drugs for “illnesses” like depression and such do more bad than good. Therapy is the key. Or is it? 🤷 I guess that taking action to better yourself and your life is the key, but more often than not you can’t do it alone and neither should you. Although, bettering yourself is mostly on you, someone else can help as long as they respect the direction you want to go and do not try to manipulate you. 😅
“(…) psychiatry is the denial of the reality of free will and of the tragic nature of life; this authenticated denial lets persons who seek a neuromythological explanation of human wickedness and who reject the inevitability of personal responsibility to medicalize life and entrust its management to health professionals.”
“(…)(most) psychiatric diagnoses are merely disease-sounding names for psychiatrically stigmatized patterns of behavior.”
All “mental illnesses” are social illnesses. They occur because people cannot accept what is different than the norm. A norm that should not exist.
Everything is natural or normal in the context it happened.
If it happened it cannot be against nature. Nature is everything! Unicorns are unatural as in they do not exist in nature, in this world, anywehere. Although… If they are in your mind and what’s in your mind is real… But let’s stay on track. If it happened, it is natural.
Is it normal? There is no normal in behaviour, of humans or other animals. As perfect physics experiments do not exist outside laboratories, nither do normal behaviours.
“In particular, it seems to me that what Piaget identifies as the “normal” development of the child is actually the sort of development which he considers desirable; and which many members of the middle and upper classes of contemporary Western societies would also consider desirable.”
Not knowing is ok and not a problem. Not understanding is ok and not a problem. Not accepting is ok, but it is your problem, not of the people/ things* you cannot accept. 🤷
*Things/ ideas/ events don’t have problems anyway. You are the only one who can have a problem and it’s on you to deal with it. If another person is a problem for you, remember you can move, do better, be more**. #nopressure 😄
** I do deslike when people say that, because I have to wonder “why me?”. Why do I have to and the other person can just stay ignorant ? Well, because you have to communicate and if that isn’t working to create a compromise that works for both, the world is big enough ( I started to wonder about this actually) and there is plenty of space unless you should be leaving in a cave***. 😬
*** there are plenty of caves too 💁… Where you can also read “The brain’s way of healing” by Norman Doidge.
P.S. “[…] while it is evidently impossible to speak about something one does not know […]” 😂 🙄 … evidently 😆
“Virtually all behavior with which the psychoanalyst and psychiatrist deal is learned behavior.” 💁
“Personally, I support respect for the autonomy and integrity of one’s self and others, but shall not make any attempt to justify these values here. I believe, however, that in a work of this kind it is necessary to make one’s moral preferences explicit, to enable the reader to better judge and compensate for the author’s biases.” ❤️
“I believe that a social trend toward worldwide human equality—in the sense of equal rights and obligations, or of participating in all games according to one’s abilities—need not be a threat to men and women. On the contrary, it represents one of the few values still deserving our admiration and support.” #metoo
“The question of precisely “how conscious” a given mental act is has plagued psychoanalysis from its earliest days. I think this is largely a pseudo-problem, for consciousness—or, self-reflective awareness—depends partly on the situation in which a person finds himself. In other words, it is partly a social characteristic rather than simply a personal one.” 🤷
“By telling a lie, the liar in effect informs his partner that he fears and depends on him and wishes to please him: this reassures the recipient of the lie that he has some control over the liar and therefore need not fear losing him. At the same time, by accepting the lie without challenging it, the person lied to informs the liar that he, too, needs the relationship and wants to preserve it. In this way, each participant exchanges truth for control, dignity for security.” – well, this describes perfectly my “relationship” to my dove 🥰😆👍🥃🔥🤷
“Those who suffer from and complain of their own behavior are usually classified as “neurotic”; those whose behavior makes others suffer, and about whom others complain, are usually classified as “psychotic.”” – I do that too 😅
Excerpts from: “The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct” by Thomas S. Szasz.
The joy of creating 