This may sound a bit simplistic - After 3 decades of trying to find an answer - here is what i can conclude -
What is it? & what are the best ways of helping people & approaching it all?
The first question often denotes the answer to the second & both are controversial & debated.
The orthodox view is mind is the brain, schizophrenia is a severe mental illness/a problem with the brain, & the best treatment we’ve found for it is psychoactive drugs.
i don’t entirely disagree with that. At heart people are still human beings & deserve humane care, kindness, understanding, support, & their basic needs taken care of - & in a civilised society it should look after it’s more vulnerable members as best as possible, & care for those who have difficulty looking after themselves.
The argument over exact aetiology & best approaches will go on - But the system won’t change, other than in the slow & glacial way it alters over the centuries. We’ve had the past 300 years of biomedical/scientific materialism as the main approach/paradigm to understanding & approaching schizophrenia - & it’s hard to see that fundamentally changing any time soon.
The brain butchery & other inhumanities wasn’t that long ago. Brain surgery/procedures for mental illness is still performed in certain cases - it still goes on.
There is a very rich & interesting history to madness, once you scratch beneath the Western past 300 year view - of Asylums & the rest - there is far far more to it all than that.
Things do change - we look back to 100 or 200 years ago & see things very differently to how the majority of people saw things at the time, & the people 100 to 200 years from now will see our current time very differently to the way a lot of people currently view things. Most of what currently goes on will be seen as very backwards, ignorant & barbaric - Just as we see a lot of the past.
i fully expect that current psychiatric treatments, drugging & ECT, & general treatment of the Mad will be seen as barbarism & very uncivilised in the future, as many things will be.
One thing i am pretty sure of - there won’t be a genuinely more humane, compassionate & comprehensive understanding & approach to ‘madness’ until this society/culture itself is a lot more humane & civilised, & Not so barbaric. Physical violence & wars spill out of/within our civilisation - But that is only a manifestation of a deeper violence in our inner Worlds; thinking, psychology, emotions, & communications - fuelled, but also reflected within mass media & other areas.
We’re just Not genuinely civilised as a species - & i question what it will take to become collectively genuinely civilised? We may destroy the life support systems of this planet we need to survive, & our species before we achieve it. i think that is a very real possibility.
I think what happens in terms of humanity collectively becoming civilised very much depends on two things, first the coming artificial intelligence and robotics revolution, and second the further evolution of the Internet and combined learning.
What I’ve been hearing recently is that AI and robotics are making major advances, and that over the next twenty years a lot of jobs are going to vanish, roughly 40% of current jobs in total. That will make it nearly impossible to hold on to the current expectation of work as a 9-to-5 activity. If we are lucky we are going to end up with more free time, and a different relationship to work and how to fill our days.
The other thing is what happens to learning over the Internet and internet based schools? This is a field that’s still in its infancy, the current Internet is still like the Wild West, largely unorganised. But eventually we may expect to see things like structured learning programmes that stretch for a decade and give you a thorough grounding in philosophy, with many interactive components. Those kinds of initiatives will help people become more sophisticated in their thinking.
By the time I die, the world may be a very different place. People may look and think differently, and habits that are hundreds of years old may have become obsolete. I hope that attitudes towards mental illness will also evolve, away from just label and drug to a more compassionate, more involved society.
& ties very much into the vision of the Zeitgeist Movement, Venus Project, Thrive, New Earth Nation & many others. It would need the complete redesign or abolishment of the current socio-economic/political systems - & will that happen? We could just as easily end up with a nightmare scenario.
& don’t forget, we had all this with computing, about how it was going to revolutionise everything & make everyone’s lives easier & less stressful, with far more leisure time - & it hasn’t, if anything the opposite has happened.
People are obsessed with work & doing, doing, doing.
[quote=“Kerome, post:5, topic:24263”]
The other thing is what happens to learning over the Internet and internet based schools? This is a field that’s still in its infancy, the current Internet is still like the Wild West, largely unorganised. But eventually we may expect to see things like structured learning programmes that stretch for a decade and give you a thorough grounding in philosophy, with many interactive components. Those kinds of initiatives will help people become more sophisticated in their thinking.[/quote]
One of the perks of being on the long term sick is that for the past 10 years i’ve been able to do a lot of reading & research, which in the past was largely only the privilege of the very wealthy. If everyone had that opportunity then things would be different.
[quote=“Kerome, post:5, topic:24263”]
By the time I die, the world may be a very different place. People may look and think differently, and habits that are hundreds of years old may have become obsolete. I hope that attitudes towards mental illness will also evolve, away from just label and drug to a more compassionate, more involved society.[/quote]
i’m prone to get very negative about it all. Simply that there are certain problems that just aren’t being properly, nor fundamentally acknowledged, let alone addressed, & we’re headed to a lot of problems the longer we carry on down the same track. Yes, the technological fixes get better, but unless there is a 180 degree turn around, i don’t think things look too promising longer term for humanity. Just how i see it. i can see their being a potential civilisation collapse & mass die off of our species. The other scenario is that we go through a very hard transition period to a far better society/Civilisation - But there are some fundamental issues, especially concerning the current dominant World systems & paradigms that need total change - & there is far too much power, control & vested interests in keeping those systems in play, regardless of the cost to collective humanity & the planet.
I think that what it boils down to is whether we believe in demons or not, and a realm apart, but in some relation to, the sub-conscious realm that we somehow are connected to but are not welcome their but can’t leave and so this drives us crazy. This is just a possible scenario but to actually “know the truth” would set us free from wondering if we are just mad or if “where” and how are heads are at is making us this way. We have to consider what facts we haven’t discovered yet, like any unseen worlds. Like the one to be, or the one that actually is just undiscovered yet like our own is in someways.
i agree. But unless the individual is personally willing to explore all that, using what resources he/she can - then there is little to no recourse from mainstream society/the system - it’s all mental illness, a brain disease, label & drugs - & the person disagreeing with all that is put into a very difficult position/dilemma.
We can maintain both the common perception of reality while keeping our own unique views of what it is revealing itself to actually becoming. Reality is established on what is already known but can still be perceived of evolving into something much much greater then we could actually perceive it could be now with or yet un-evolved minds of that order.
When I first developed symptoms as I think back before I was even diagnosed I was seeing life through a different kind of glasses they were like bifocals so I could see another realm along with the one I was actually living in like I was working at the time so that was reality that I had to work to pay the bills while seeing many other signs of a totally blended in realm with the more common reality. It was strange to me but very interesting to experience like if part of my brain died on the acid trip I took the night before and when I woke up the next morning I was becoming more aware of this new realm that I knew that I could not talk about it or try to convince anyone of it and what I was seeing mentally as well as physically I just kept to myself although I did try to point it out to some people who naturally thought I was crazy. I finally was suffering too much anxiety from the stress of living or being in two different realms at the same time so I was diagnosed and am still needing medications to deal with this duality.
Regardless if they are actually real and factual does not matter most, it’s the real affect that these abnormal beliefs have on us and our actions. I have acted on a delusion once or twice in my life, but I was aware of them as others saw them to be. I still practice seeing myself through others eyes so I don’t get carried away with abnormal fantastical believing just to fill in the empty spaces in in my life.
My psychosis has very much been about living in 2 world at the same time. Everything in the normal world has a double meaning. Language means 2 things and there’s a symbolic meaning to every mundane meaning. The problem is that the second world is very sinister and there seems to be no benefit in experiencing that world-- except to know the dark and humorous nature of reality.
I view Sz as a form of brain injury. I had a brain that worked well until it didn’t. A lot of the function I have regained has been hard won, by pushing myself to do the same types of therapies stroke and other brain injury victims do to regain function. I still can’t remember when to shower without a pre-programmed calendar (irony, oh how I hate thee), but I’ve gotten many other abilities back. Picked up some new ones along the way, too.
[quote=“shutterbug, post:17, topic:24263”]
I view Sz as a form of brain injury[/quote]
i wouldn’t deny that there is a physiology/biology to schizophrenia. i personally question how much that is the primary aetiology (cause)?
i think there is also a lot of different stuff that comes under the schizophrenia label. There may be 20 or more different/general conditions (or more) being labelled the same.
My life & experience is individual to me. i accept the diagnosis for practical reasons, but it means little to nothing to me, & i have my own explanations as to why i have experienced the things i have.
I think such a scenario can cause a boom in mental illnesses such as depression and also schizophrenia. For many people it is hard to stay engaged if they aren’t moved by external forces such as the need to work in order to provide for yourself. Not everyone can rely on a strong intrinsic motivation to stay active. I think if you disengage from social structures you face the risk of such mental illnesses. They are vicious circles. As we probably know, getting a routine going can work wonders for our negative (depressive-like) symptoms. But the tougher your negative symptoms are the harder it is to get a routine going. If society no longer expects us to engage in routines such symptoms can easily get a foothold.
Now maybe in such a scenario society develops in such a way to expect other routines from us, like charity or arts or maybe just more socialization with friends and family becomes the norm we are expected to live up to. That might work, but such expectations take time to grow into a culture I think. I think it would be a disaster if something like a basic income were to be introduced overnight.
I think I’ve heard also that since every brain is different, they can’t do a scan for schizophrenia that would be accurate, such as diagnosis on that basis.